The federal government has produced over 1.1 billion new $100 bills; however the bills have a problem. These high tech bills easily crease during printing, causing blank spots. Now they all must be inspected, and the Feds are still working to find a way to mechanically separate the good bills from the flawed bills. Cost to fix this all: $110 billion.
Originally scheduled for a February 2011 release date, the bills were the first run of a high-tech note designed to combat counterfeiting by including a 3-D security ribbon.
The Federal Reserve first acknowledged an issue with the bills in October, but did not specify the scope of the problem.
The flaw -- a problem with sporadic creasing of the paper that results in small blank spaces -- only surfaced during a part of the process that requires high pressure printing, the official said.
That made the flaw difficult to detect during the normal inspection process.
"The Bureau of Engraving and Printing did testing so they could be sure the notes would run correctly," the official said. "Unfortunately the creasing problem did not reveal during testing. It's very difficult to detect."
