See Why You May Never See The New C-Note

FORT WORTH (AP) - The government said Monday it will need to check more than 1 billion new $100 bills because of production problems that have left unwanted creases in many of the notes.

Officials of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in North Fort Worth said Monday that they are examining 1.1 billion of the new bills to determine how much of the currency will have to be destroyed.

Carol Riggs a spokeswoman for the bureau's Fort Worth plant, said officials believe a large proportion of the new bills will pass inspection and be placed into circulation.  "We're confident a high proportion of the bills will be usable."

The currency is being held in vaults at the bureau's two printing facilities.  The other location is in Washington, D.C.

The currency had originally been scheduled to go into circulation on Feb. 10. Riggs said a new date will not be set until the production problems are resolved.

The government had announced on Oct. 1 that the currency was being delayed but it had not given an estimate of how many bills might have been affected by the production problems.

"We're trying to tell the public, we're working on this issue and have been since October," Riggs said
That's when the Bureau of Engraving first issued a press release saying they would have to delay the release of the news 100 dollar bills.

Riggs said that the bureau was working to develop a process to check all of the new notes that have been printed as well as determine the best approach to take to deal with the unwanted creasing in the new bills.  She added the presses at the Fort Worth plant have been printing bills since the facility opened in 1991.

The bills have been redesigned with sophisticated elements aimed at thwarting counterfeiters. Those include a disappearing Liberty Bell in an inkwell and a bright blue security ribbon that 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.

The Bureau said that until the production problems are resolved, the bureau will continue to use the previous $100 bill design, which is considered to still be effective against counterfeiters.

The redesigned $100 bill was unveiled by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke during ceremonies at the Treasury Department last April.

Benjamin Franklin will remain on the C-note, which is the highest value denomination in general circulation. It is also the most frequent target of counterfeiters.

The $100 bill is the last note to undergo an extensive redesign in an effort to thwart counterfeiters armed with ever-more sophisticated copying machines. The redesigns began in 2003 when the government added splashes of color to the $20 bill. That makeover was followed by redesigns for the $50, $10 and $5 bills. The $1 bill isn't getting a makeover.

(© Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)