Why Is Americas Paper Money All The Same Size When Other Countries Difer In Size?
US paper money used to be issued by local banks, in whatever state or region you were in. The look of the currency and actual size of the bills varied a lot. But in the early 20th century central printing of money at just a few centres came in. In 1929 a standard size for US bills was introduced, with the bill size shrunk to the current size (6″ x 2.5″) to save manufacturing costs. Machines that take currency (like vending and other payment machines) would have to be altered if the size of the bills was altered, so industry is resistant to make these adaptations and suffer the consequential costs. The US treasury claims that counterfitting is made difficult because of the relatively small size of the bills, but probably, truth be told, they don’t want to incur the costs of changing their printing presses, either. American bills have recently come out with splashes of red, orange and yellow on them, a break from the only colours seen on US bills in the last 50 years: green, cream, black
