Replies

How many new $20 bills have been circulated since they first came out?
Michelle
Boston, Massachusetts

Dear Michelle:
On October 9, 2003, the Federal Reserve System introduced the public to the redesigned, colorful $20 bill, complete with a new peach background, a blue eagle, and a green tint near the right and left edges. Called the "the most secure U.S. currency ever," the bills were specially designed to confound counterfeiters. After all, the $20 bill is the most counterfeited and second most used bill (after the $1 bill).
We couldn't find the exact number of bills that have been circulated, but we did learn that in the month of October alone, plans were for around 1 billion of the "greenbacks" to hit the streets. The government spent over $32 million promoting the new bill and released only the new $20s throughout October, holding onto older $20 bills until November. The average life of a $20 bill is approximately 2 years, and as the older bills wear out, they will be gradually pulled and replaced with the new bills.

The last major redesign of the popular bill came in 1998, when the off-center portrait of Andrew Jackson and plastic thread were added. In order to keep ahead of devious counterfeiters, the government aims to redesign each currency bill every 7-10 years. In 2005, look for colorful versions of the $50 and $100 bills to make the rounds. While the $5 and $10 may get facelifts in the near future, there are currently no plans to update the $1 or $2 bill, as these lowly denominations are the least popular among counterfeiters.

Although many consumers welcome the revamped look of the $20, the feeling is not universal. The new bills were rejected by a number of automated machines that were not programmed to accept them yet.

Dear Yahoo!:
How many different currencies are there in the world?
Napper
Ruidoso, New Mexico

Dear Napper:
Most countries have their own currencies, but not all. For instance, many of the island nations of the Caribbean, such as Saint Lucia and Dominica, use the same East Caribbean dollar. Likewise, a number of African nations, including Chad and Niger, use the Communaute Financiere Africaine franc. Often the territories or dependencies of a country use the governing country's currency -- for example, the Virgin Islands and Guam use the United States dollar.
We learned all this from the CIA World Factbook, which offers detailed fact sheets on every country in the world. This site also hosts a large list of world currencies that shows 178 different currencies in use.

Looking for confirmation of this number, we typed "world currency list" into the Yahoo! search box. The first web site returned, Currencies of the World, listed only 112 different currencies, so we moved on to the web page matches.

That's where we came across the Xe.com currency site's list of 182 currencies. This list includes one duplicate (Ireland/Eire), four precious metals, the Crude Oil Barrels Index, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Special Drawing Right, and the European Economic and Monetary Union's Euro.

We're tempted to leave the metals, oil, and IMF off our currency count, since they're not exactly like the cash you might find in your wallet. And we can't really count the Euro yet because, while it is legal currency in 12 European nations, bank notes and coins won't be circulated in Europe until 2002.

So minus these exceptions, Xe.com's total of world currencies is actually 174. However, they leave off the Vatican lira, the Tuvaluan dollar, the Manx pound, and the Jersey pound (all of which are included on the CIA World Factbook list). If we take the revised Xe.com total of 174 and add the missing 4, we're back at 178, confirming the World Factbook's listing.

Of course, by February 28, 2002, European national bank notes and coins will be withdrawn from circulation in favor of the Euro -- which will add 1 currency while eliminating 12.

http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20010626.html