Even though the United States leads the rest of the world in many areas (rap music, snack foods, et cetera), there is one thing that we´ve fallen shamefully behind on: the aesthetic appeal of our money. For most of the last century, our paper money was a set of nearly identical drab green slips, with dismal portraiture of some of our best Presidents and other historical figures, introduced in 1923. From the father of our country George Washington on the humble dollar to semi-obscure Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase on the ten large, these bills were the best we could do until 2004. A new series was introduced that year, with a number of innovations - bigger portraits, new watermarks, and most importantly, splashes of color. But other countries had been doing all that and more for many years. In this feature, we take a whirlwind tour around the globe to look at the money of many nations, giving props to the Earth´s Coolest Currency.
by K. Thor Jensen
