The Money Factory

Hey everybody,

The Washington Monument

When we went to D.C. a couple days ago, we went to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (a.k.a. The Money Factory). The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is the place where they make 1, 5, 10, 20, and 100 dollar bills. When we first walked in to the Money Factory there was a million dollars in 10 dollar bills! On the tour we took, we learned that they redeem old torn or damaged money. They redeem about $30 million every year!  They also change the design of the bill every 7-10 years to help prevent counterfeiting. When we were watching the people make money, an employee tried to hand me a wad of money to me through the glass. I tried to grab it but the glass was in the way. Then he held up sign that said $400,000 on it and pointed to the wad of money he tried to hand me. After that he held up a  sign that said "free samples" everyone got excited and he turned it around and it said "yesterday". There was also another sign that said "I just printed the equivalent of my life's salary in a couple seconds!". It was super fascinating watching them make money, I really enjoyed all the tricks and techniques they made the money with. One example is that they use a watermark. A watermark is a picture embedded in the paper, only see-able when you hold it up to the light. You can't scan or copy watermark so it helps prevent counterfeiting. Also they use color-shifting inks. Look at a dollar bill and move it around. The ink is green now it's black and its green again! If you want to learn more about $ go to their site http://www.moneyfactory.gov. We also went to the Annapolis Sailboat Show. At the boat show some companies gave out key chains and at the gate we were challenged to get as many as we could. The recorded was 19 key chains and we just beat it with 20.

Here are all our key chains!