SOME INTERESTING THINGS ABOUT OUR MONEY

Who Knew? Mind-Blowing Facts About Your Money BY BRANDON SPECKTOR. 

Enjoy these freshly minted facts about the life and death of money. U.S. paper money is not paper at all: It's 75 percent cotton and 25 percent linen. In Benjamin Franklin's day, people repaired torn bills with a needle and thread. Today, the Fed prefers to shred. ­Every month, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia sends 16 tons of old, cut-up cash to an energy-from-waste plant in Chester, Pennsylvania, to be burned; the resulting steam produces electricity to power homes throughout the Delaware Valley. Most paper money never sees puberty. With a life span of about four and a half years, the $10 bill is our shortest-lived note. Our longest-­living, the $100 bill, lasts only 15 years. It takes about 4,000 double folds (first forward and then backward) before a bill will tear. It takes far fewer folds for a snooty vending machine to reject your bill-but you can fix that by popping your Washington in the microwave for about 20 seconds to crisp it up. The U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing prints 32.2 million currency notes each day, with a face value of approximately $907.8 million. Two-dollar bills are seen as a rarity, but there are more than 1.1 billion of them in circulation. You can find them at most local banks. The largest note ever made was the $100,000 Gold Certificate (printed December 1934 through January 1935). The bills were used only in transactions between Federal Reserve banks and the U.S. Treasury. A quarter has 119 grooves around its edge; a dime has 118. The grooves were added to make it difficult for people to file down the edges and sell the shavings as precious metals. It costs more than a penny to make a penny. According to the U.S. Mint, it costs roughly 1.7 cents per coin. Benjamin Franklin reportedly designed the first U.S. penny, in 1787. Instead of "E Pluribus Unum," it proudly stated, "Mind Your Business. The bald eagle on your money may have a name. From 1830 to 1836, a certain bird swooped into Philadelphia's U.S. Mint building so often that workers named him ­Peter the Mint Eagle, cared for him, and allegedly used him as a model for coin engravings for years after. Want to feel time fly? There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar. Go on-try to find them all.