New $50 bill hits the street

WASHINGTON -- A new $50 bill with touches of red, blue and yellow will be showing up soon at banks, in cash registers and wallets. A new $10 bill also is in the works, the third greenback to get colorized to cut back on counterfeiting.

Government officials used one of the new $50 bills Tuesday morning to buy a $45 U.S. flag, which came in a box, at a shop in Union Station. Old $50 bills will continue to be accepted and recirculated until they wear out.

As for plans for the new $10 bill, Alexander Hamilton, the nation's first treasury secretary, is expected to stay on the front, with the Treasury Department remaining on the back, Thomas Ferguson, director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, said.

The new $10 bill is expected to be unveiled this spring and put into circulation in fall 2005. The last time the note got a new look was in 2000, when Hamilton's portrait became oversized and moved slightly off center.

"As with the $50 and the $20, there will be subtle background tones and tints. They will be different from those used on the other two so each of the notes will start to be even more distinctive and easier for people to differentiate quickly," Ferguson said. He wouldn't say what the colors on the new $10 would be.

Colors for the redesigned notes vary by denomination.

After the $10 makeover comes the $100 bill, the most counterfeited note outside the United States, Ferguson said. The $5 bill won't get a new look, and neither will the $1 and $2 notes, he said.

A new $100 note was supposed to follow the new $50, but that changed because the bureau is considering additional security features for the $100 bill. A timetable for a new $100 bill hasn't been set.

The colorizing project is part of a broader effort to make the bills harder to counterfeit, especially against the backdrop of readily available digital technology.

The $20 bill, the most counterfeited note in the United States, was the first to get extra color. Featuring touches of peach, blue and yellow, the new $20 note went into circulation last fall.