Canada's New Plastic Money Won't Rip, Melt Or Be Mistaken For A Sex Toy

Canada, which dropped its $1 bill in favor of coins decades ago, is continuing to tear up its paper currency. This week, the country introduced a plastic $100 bill, which the government says is rip-resistant, virtually impossible to counterfeit, and won’t melt in the dryer or freeze in the winter. It’s also been modified, since some early reviewers saw sex toys and naked women in its original design.

The polymer-based $100 bill is the first in a series, and includes holograms, metallic elements and a clear, see-through window designed to make them harder to counterfeit. When the new bills were first announced, Bank of Canada officials were quick to point out that the plastic material could stand up to both clothes dryers and long Canadian winters.

USA Today reports that they also had to make some design modifications when focus group participants saw some unexpected images in a prototype’s design:

Demonstrating the powerful connection between money and sex, the Canadian Press wrote last month that “a focus group mistook the depiction of a strand of DNA on the $100 bill for a sex toy, and most people thought the see-through window on the polymer notes was shaped like the contours of a woman’s body.”

The peek-a-boo design was tweaked before the bill was released into the not-always-see-through financial wilds.

The Canadian government will also be issuing plastic $50, $20, $10 and $5 bills. They will presumably be subject to the same rigorous design review and input by creative members of the public.

Canada introduces plastic $100 bill [USA Today]

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