Students and teachers from the LCI National Capital Region took a field trip recently to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, D.C. The BEP designs and prints billions of dollars in paper currency each year for delivery to the Federal Reserve, the nation's central bank.
Below are essays written by several students, as well as photos from the trip.
Natalia Rodriguez
This was one of the most interesting places that I have visited in my life, because I could appreciate better how the money such as bills and are engraved, inked and printed.
We started to watch a video about the history of money, when the first engraving and printing was founded in 1862 just with six people. Then this company was growing with more people and it was totally formed in 1934. Since then the same company exists until now.
After we watched the video, the tourist guide showed us the steps how the bills are created and processed. The first step is they start to engrave the security marks on the bills and then they ink the bills with the colors green, yellow, black and blue. The second step is they print the bills with their denomination number, correlative serie and the year which it was created. This company changed the new design on the bills every seven or ten years. The people who design the new bills work in front of this company. Finally they package the bills in bricks. For example each brick has $80,000 in denomination of 20’s. In total the company produce from $900,000 to $1,200,000 per day.
One important data is the Bureau of Engraving and Printing Company has a customer that is The Federal Treasury Reserve (FTR). When the FTR receive the money it is distributed to all the national banks. 95% of all the produced money is exchanged for damaged money from the Federal Treasury Reserve, and just the 5% is placed in circulation, that it means “the national inflation” of The United States of America.
Victoria Cheng
This is my first time to see money printing out from machines. The tour guide said each type of notes will change their designs in 7 to 10 years. The water print designs are to make sure that notes are real. Those designs can not be easily reproduced. The paper used to print the notes is also special. Those trees are from the central of the United States. Moreover, notes are basically printed in green in the back and black in the front. Each notes print in different color. One dollar notes do not have special color. However, the rest of notes are printed in specific color. For example, ten dollar notes are printed with yellow and hundred notes are printed with blue.
Those machines used to print 1.5 billion dollars per day. Due to people who are changing their way to pay by credit card, now those machines reduce the amount to 900 million per day. The 95% of notes are used to replace the notes that are seriously damaged. The rest is used to keep the currency demand balancing. Before the notes are public to the market, the notes will check by machines to make sure the notes are correct. If there is an error, that note will be replaced with a special note whose number has a star. These notes for replacement are rare. If I get the note with a star, I will keep the note and do not use it. Meanwhile, I know there was a mistake happened. And this is what I have learned during the tour in Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
It is important to know how notes are being printed and how the government design notes to be protected. Also, I would like to know how people who work in Bureau feel because they company with million dollars. Even I just walked through in front of the window, I could smell the money.
Ayman Alhammad
Long time ago, money was important thing in our life. However, is not easy to have or to create it. Yesterday, I visited bureau of engraving and printing one of the effect place in global economy and take general idea about the dollar printing process.
Firstly, me and my friends take the metro from Dunng Louren to Smithsonian station that located on 14th St at DC, which the edifice at the there. It was old building.
Next, we walk up the stairs and it was surprised me that no unusual security pressure. After passed the check point. We sat at the lobby to watch a short film about the bureau.
After that, the guide women took us throw the corridors to explain how print money and how much the print every day. In addition the explanation was very deep and the questions that my friend asked our guide were smart.
In sum, I enjoy of the trip to bureau of engraving and printing. Absolutely it is a good place that any one will come to D.C have to visit.
