wrote:
"Graham Murray" wrote in message
...
Roland Perry writes:

In message , at 06:13:27
on Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Charles Ellson
remarked:
Aren't US banknotes also all the same size
Yes, they are.
Does the USA not have disability discrimination legislation? Having all
banknotes the same size is surely discrimination against blind people.

I thought that the US Federal Reserve had added colour to their notes in
recent years, which should help.

The color (added in 2004) really doesn't help much in practice, since
most of the bills still in circulation don't have it and thus the colors
haven't been absorbed into the public consciousness. Heck, I still
today frequently get "small portrait" bills (last printed in 1993-1995)
in addition to "large portrait" non-color ones (last printed in
2001-2003). And that's in the US, in the same city as a Federal Reserve
Bank; over two thirds of US currency circulates _outside_ the US, where
banks aren't actively replacing old bills with new ones.

You can see images of all modern US currency in its various forms at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Note

So far, no color $100s have been printed, but that's planned. The $1
bill didn't get a "large portrait" version in the 1990s because they
were supposed to be removed from circulation and replaced with $1 coins,
but special interest groups (mainly vending machine makers/owners) got
that postponed indefinitely. The $2 bill wasn't redesigned simply due
to apathy; there aren't enough of them to matter (less than 1% of all US
bills), and most are kept as collectibles, not circulating currency,
though that might change if/when plans for withdrawing the $1 bill are
finally put into action.

One would think that they would also put some form of braille on notes
to help delineate.

That's tough with our bills since they're cloth (high grade denim,
technically) and not that nearly indestructible plastic/paper stuff used
for most other countries' notes. Braille and cloth don't mix well; even
if you could print the bills with the feature, it'd be ruined after a
few weeks/months in circulation.

S