The US Treasury will release the new 100 dollar bill in the next few months. Slated to be released in early 2011, the new ‘Benjamins’ are a bit behind schedule. The delays are due to manufacturing problems with the advanced new security features.

For Wal-Mart, the new C-notes can’t come soon enough. The world’s largest retailer has been bedevilled by the bogus bills of late – alternately passing ‘dead presidents’ to unsuspecting customers, then confiscating and tearing them up, resulting in customer lawsuits.

[ Please insert your own ironic joke about Wal-Mart customers using C-notes here..]

The $100 bill is the most frequently counterfeited note. North Korea Prints them like toilet paper, and as it turns out, our nation’s currency is surprisingly fragile. Economists predict that should counterfeiting reache 10% of circulating bills, U.S. currency will collapse.

Fig 1 – Info-graphics showing the amount of counter fitting of the US $100 Bill from It’s A Money Thing.

In the new C-note, Benjamin Franklin gets to stay.. but the rest of the bill gets a radical redesign. In addition to a color-changing ‘inkwells’ and ‘Liberty Bells’  the new $100 dollar bill includes a bright blue plastic  “3D Security Ribbon”.

Fig. 2 –  Closeup of the front face of the new $100 Bill, showing the 3D Security Ribbon.

That’s right. The 3D craze that has swept through our movie theaters and television screens, has now hit the very lifeblood of America – our money! The bright blue plastic holograph runs down the bill like an animated racing stripe.

Video 1 – Video of New $100 Bill showing the 3D Security Ribbon in motion.

And racing stripe is an apt description. This isn’t a static hologram. The micro-printed “$100” text and ‘bells’  race across the blue strip like a Vegas Slot machine. This is definitely some trick Holo-Tek.

I think the Treasury has nailed it. This bill stands out, providing counterfeit detection at-a-glance. And the Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says the new $100 bill will be “exponentially more difficult for criminals to copy”.

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Read more:

• Texas woman sues Wal-Mart for ripping up her $100 Bills – LA Times
• Customer stuck with counterfeit $100 bill she got from Wal-Mart – Business Insider
• $100 Note unveiling video  –  YouTube
• Great Counter fitting infographics – ItsaMoneyThing