This time, a printing error called "mashing" – when too much ink is applied to the paper – has rendered 30 million bills totally useless, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing confirmed to the New Yorker's David Wolman.
"This time, recent batches of cash from the Washington, D.C., plant contained 'clearly unacceptable' bills intermixed with passable ones, according to a July memo to employees from Larry Felix, the bureau’s director," Wolman explains. "So the Fed is returning more than thirty million hundred-dollar notes and demanding its
This is only the latest in a string of screw-ups that have kept the $100 bill out of circulation well past its original 2011 due date. Another printing error caused bills to be printed with a blank spot. And just a year ago, thieves made off with a massive shipment of the new bills.
Now, the Bureau is on major damage control, sprinting to meet an October 8 deadline to get the notes printed – correctly – and finally into circulation.
In the meantime, taxpayers will likely be left to pick up the tab for disposing of the bills and whatever extra time is needed to print them again.
Just in case you're sick of waiting for the new bills to arrive, here's a mock-up of what the new bill will look like.
via Federal Reserve
It's going to be tricked out with colors that change when you bend it, an image of the liberty bell, and a new blue, 3-D anti-counterfeit strip hidden inside.