New and improved $100 bill coming in Oct

The US Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it would begin circulating a $100 bill redesigned with high-tech security features this fall, more than two years after its initial target. The Fed has set a target date of October 8. The revamped note incorporates added security features, such as a blue, 3-D security ribbon and a disappearing Liberty Bell in an inkwell that switches colour from copper to green when tilted. The features are designed to thwart counterfeiters. The new notes, which cost slightly more to produce, also boast a large '100' that shifts colors as the viewing angle is tilted. The revamped bill had been expected to go into circulation in February 2011. But in December 2010, officials announced an indefinite delay. They said they needed more time to fix production issues that left unwanted creases in many of the notes. 'We made numerous process changes to address the creasing issue and we are back in full production,' said Dawn Haley, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Haley said those changes include modifying the paper feeder on printing presses to accommodate variations in the paper associated with the 3-D security ribbon. The blue security ribbon is composed of thousands of tiny lenses. Those lenses magnify the objects underneath them to make them appear to be moving in the opposite direction from the way the bill is being moved. Benjamin Franklin's portrait will remain on the $100 bill. Another security strip, visible to the left of Franklin's head when the note is held up to light, is embedded into the fabric. Like the old note, the new one has a watermark of Franklin's portrait, also visible when held up to light. The banknote is the highest value denomination in general circulation and the most frequent target of counterfeiters due to its broad circulation overseas. The $100 bill, which had its last makeover in 1996, is the last note to undergo an extensive redesign aimed at thwarting counterfeiters who have access to ever-more sophisticated copying machines. In recent years, US officials have been trying to combat the continued production of extremely high-quality counterfeit $100 notes they say are produced in North Korea, dubbed the 'supernote,' which are undetectable to nearly all but the most sophisticated currency experts. The US Secret Service, the agency charged with policing the integrity of the nation's currency, maintains that only a tiny fraction of a per cent of currency in circulation is counterfeit. But Secret Service officials have said they still encounter supernotes and other highly sophisticated fakes from overseas. The billions of older-design $100s already in circulation will remain legal tender after the new notes are released. The old notes will be destroyed and replaced as they pass through the Fed system.