
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 14, 1994                   TAG: 9407140087
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

DOLLAR BILLS TO GET FIRST FACIAL IN 65 YEARS

Move over Ben Franklin, tell Andrew Jackson the news: The portraits on the\ nation's paper money likely will be enlarged and moved off-center as part of the first major makeover in 65 years.

``Our plan ... is a pre-emptive step to protect U.S. currency from high-tech counterfeiting,'' Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen said in announcing the redesign Wednesday.

His department plans to have a final design ready sometime in 1995 and begin circulating new bills about a year later, starting with the most popular target for counterfeiters, $100 notes.

Nothing has been decided for certain, but Treasury officials gave the House Banking Committee a rundown Wednesday of what was likely.

The enlarged portraits - Franklin on the $100, Ulysses Grant on the $50, Jackson on the $20, Alexander Hamilton on the $10, Abraham Lincoln on the $5 and George Washington on the $1 - will allow for more detailed engraving of what is the most recognizable feature on a bill. The $2 bill, with Thomas Jefferson, is not being redesigned.

Moving the portraits also will make room for a watermark in the form of a smaller version of the portrait, visible only when a bill is held to the light.

Other likely changes include:

Color-shifting ink that may, for instance, appear green when viewed straight on and gold from an angle.

Computer-designed ``interactive'' patterns that turn wavy when illicitly copied.

Iridescent planchettes in bills' paper. These are colored discs only a few millimeters wide that reflect light.

Micro-printing and machine-detectable threads or fibers in the paper.

by CNB