Bumpy currency hits stores
Kevin Wilson
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Feb 21/01) - In the good old days, counterfeiting bills was the toughest crime around. A master forger would labour for days, even weeks to create near-perfect ink plates to get the funny money on the street.
Nowadays, any moron with a computer, a scanner and laser printer, plus some halfway-decent paper can pass nearly flawless copies without a second thought.
That's why the Bank of Canada recently undertook a redesign of our currency.
"The new notes will contain many new sophisticated security features," the central bank's Web site states.
"This comes at a time when affordable high resolution colour copiers, inkjet printers and computer scanners have increased the potential for counterfeiting."
A new $10 bill is already in circulation. By the end of 2003, all notes from five to 100 will have new designs.
Fiddle with the coin (or bills) of the realm at your peril. The new 10-spot commemorates the military and peacekeeping on its back.
If you look very closely, you can read John McCrae's classic poem "In Flanders fields."
A vicious rumour began to circulate that there was a misprint in the poem and that the Bank would have to take the new bills out of circulation.
A slightly huffy Bank of Canada issued a release stating that everyone who had asked in fact remembered the poem incorrectly, and that the poem in the bill was indeed the correct version.
Our new Canadian $10 bills have started showing up in local cash registers, and they are pretty noticeable.
Mira Hache serves up coffee at Javaroma. When she got her first glimpse at the new and improved tenner, she thought it looked like "a traveller's cheque."
Fortunately, an on-the-ball boss had tipped the staff off to the impending arrival.
"If I hadn't been made aware that new bills were coming," says Hache, "I probably wouldn't have accepted it."
With time comes acceptance, and Hache has come to like the new addition to her till.
"I really like the idea of the braille bumps on it," she says, referring to a new feature on the bill which allows the blind and visually impaired to better keep track of their money.
