Eagles, Eyes, and Pyramids: Decoding the Dollar

Have you ever really looked at a dollar bill? Not to see if a previous owner doodled something in the corner, or if there are too many creases for a vending machine to accept it.

On this episode of 2 Cents, Drew and Jeff chat about the plethora of symbolism that can be found on US currency. Did you know those fine lines in the corners of a dollar bill serve a purpose? Do you know where that bill was printed? Or that George Washington wasn't always on the front of the dollar bill? Check out this episode to unlock the history and mystery of the money in your wallet.

Credits:
An AmeriServ Financial, Inc. Production 
Music by SchneckMind, powered by Suno
Hosted by Drew Thomas and Jeffrey Matevish

Thanks for listening! You can find out more about AmeriServ by visiting ameriserv.com. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

DISCLAIMER
This podcast focuses on having valuable conversations on various topics related to banking and financial health. The podcast is grounded in having open conversations with professionals and experts, with the goal of helping to take some of the mystery out of financial and related topics; as learning about financial products and services can help you make more informed financial decisions. Please keep in mind that the information contained within this podcast, and any resources available for download from our website or other resources relating to Bank Chats is not intended, and should not be understood or interpreted to be, financial advice. The hosts, guests, and production staff of Bank Chats expressly recommend that you seek advice from a trusted financial professional before making financial decisions. The hosts of Bank Chats are not attorneys, accountants, or financial advisors, and the program is simply intended as one source of information. The podcast is not a substitute for a financial professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation. AmeriServ Presents: Bank Chats is produced and distributed by AmeriServ Financial, Incorporated.

Transcript

Drew Thomas: 0:00

Because starting these things out is always a challenge, and I don't know why.

Jeff Matevish: 0:28

So, we should have a standard intro.

Drew Thomas: 0:30

Yeah, we should have a standard intro. We should just have a standard, I don't know. Well, we have an intro. I mean...

Jeff Matevish: 0:36

Well, yes, I mean a standard...

Drew Thomas: 0:39

Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, so today we are, when this, we were just, just before we turned the cameras and the mics on, we were talking about, does this air, or does this stream? Or what does this do? We don't know. It satellites, or it internets, or it somethings but it used to be called airing it, you know. And so, this is airing, streaming, whatever, just after Independence Day, right? Yep. So, if you're listening to this, when it drops, you know, congratulations, we just got through the Fourth of July.

Jeff Matevish: 1:09

Yay, barbecues and explosions, what the

Drew Thomas: 1:12

That's right, you know, let's, let's, let's

Jeff Matevish: 1:12

Drew thought, yeah. founding fathers wanted, right? celebrate the birth of our nation by blowing up a small part of it, right? That's it. I steal that from a friend of

Drew Thomas: 1:18

To be perfectly fair, because Jeff is not a big mine, but it's, it's, it's a fantastic quote, I love it. And he probably stole it from someone else, to be perfectly honest, I have no idea. But so, yeah, so we thought, you know, well, I thought... history buff, and every time I bring up a topic about history, Jeff's like, ugh, but...

Jeff Matevish: 1:41

It's a sure, and then frantic struggle to research whatever it was in history that Drew wants to talk about.

Drew Thomas: 1:47

Yeah, but see, I'm one of those weird people that actually finds history interesting, whereas I grant you that I understand there, there are a lot of people that don't. Yeah. And but I, here's, here's the thing, when I think about history and I, not just about money, which we're going to talk about today, which is like the history and some of the, some of the symbolism in money, but just in general, I think history is the greatest story ever told. Everything that has ever happened in human history is part of history. So, whether it was boring or whether it was interesting, it's all part of history. So, it's a matter of what you study.

Jeff Matevish: 2:20

I guess, yeah, yeah, right, right.

Drew Thomas: 2:22

There's an old Chinese curse that says, may you live in interesting times. Nobody studies the 1950s because it was, it was a great time, right? I mean, if you take out Korea, I guess you know, but for the most part, you know, the roaring 20s, the 50s were like this, like, great time in history. Not a lot of people, but a lot of people really enjoy World War II. You know, as far as you know, learning about stuff so true. Anyway, I digress. So, we're gonna talk a little bit about money today. And I know that on the podcast we generally talk about money. I mean, that's the whole point of the podcast. But we're literally gonna talk about physical money and some of the symbolism and so forth that you find on us coins and US bills. And we're going to focus a lot on the $1 bill today, but I think we had some, you found some interesting stuff about coinage and stuff too, right? I mean like...

Jeff Matevish: 3:08

Yeah, and I didn't realize how many denominations of coins and paper currency we've had over the years. I mean, a lot, a little bit more than what we have today. I mean, like, the $3 coin and the half cent. And the, I

Drew Thomas: 3:23

Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, there is, it was, I don't don't know $2 coin.

Jeff Matevish: 3:25

Yeah, I don't know heavier, people, I mean, want to get too much into coins. We could probably do an entire episode on coins. So, we can kind of maybe come back to coins people don't carry coins, and people don't carry paper money a little bit too. But I will say this, the $1 coin is something that the US Mint and Treasury has been desperately trying to get the US population to adopt, and yet we steadfastly refuse to do so. And I'm not really sure why that is exactly. much anymore, either. But I mean, that's also true, coins are heavy.

Drew Thomas: 3:57

Yeah, coins are heavy. That is true. I know that, you know, there, there was a discussion, I guess when they started trying to introduce the, what was it the Susan B. Anthony dollar, okay, yeah, it was too close to a quarter. Like it felt like a quarter in size, and kind of felt like a quarter. It was hard to discern. But then they tried to do the Sacagawea dollar, back in the, I want to say the early 2000s something like that, and it had a brass coating over it, and it felt different than a quarter, and yet people still just added it to the collection and then never spent.

Jeff Matevish: 4:30

Yeah, there was quite a few vending machines that I would get Sacagawea dollars as change for whatever reason.

Drew Thomas: 4:37

Now, did you spend it, though, when she got them? Or did you, like, put them in a jar?

Jeff Matevish: 4:40

You know, I think I probably put them in, put them in a jar, yeah.

Drew Thomas: 4:42

So, it's like, it's like they, we treat them like they're commemorative coins, for some reason.

Jeff Matevish: 4:46

Yeah, like the $2 bill, you know.

Drew Thomas: 4:48

Yeah, $2 bills. I, you know, for a short time, and I may go, I may have to go back to this, because honestly, it was really kind of fun to do it. But I used to keep a couple of$2 bills in my wallet way back in the day. Yeah? And I would spend them on purpose, and watch people get this confused expression on their face, like, is this real money? Yeah, yeah. And it was great, and I kind of got away from doing it, but it

Jeff Matevish: 5:09

Yeah, not, not a common bill anymore, but...

Drew Thomas: 5:10

Some people think that they're unlucky, and then some people think that they're actually lucky. I guess it's about half the, I don't know why there would be a luck involved in a $2 bill, but I don't know, yeah, so we're going to talk a little bit about mostly paper money today. And I wanted to do this because we are just out of Independence Day, and there's a lot of patriotism and history and things like that, that, that is wrapped up in $1 bill. And a lot of people, we spend these things all the time, and yet nobody really pays much attention to it for the most part. Yeah, no. So, did you, did you ever look at, actually, really look at $1 bill before you started talking about, like, looking into the research for this?

Jeff Matevish: 5:50

Nah. I mean, yeah. I mean, I like its intricacy, but I've never looked at symbolism. Never looked close enough to, I don't know, wonder what that meant.

Drew Thomas: 6:01

Yeah, yeah. But so, so first of all, when we talk about paper money, right?

Jeff Matevish: 6:08

It's not really paper, either.

Drew Thomas: 6:09

It is not really paper, that's, that's, that's the thing. So, if you, if you have $1 bill handy, go ahead and you, I mean, you can get it out of your wallet. You can look at it. We'll throw something up on the screen, maybe somewhere around in here, or maybe just do an overlay if you're watching on YouTube, but if you're, if you're listening to the podcast, you'll, you'll have to, you have to do your own visualization or visual aids. But so, what is, so what is a paper, because you're right, it's not paper. What is money made out of?

Jeff Matevish: 6:35

Cotton and linen, or cotton and something.

Drew Thomas: 6:38

Cotton and linen. It is, yeah, okay, yeah.

Jeff Matevish: 6:40

It's mostly cotton.

Drew Thomas: 6:41

Yeah, it's, yeah, it's like 75% cotton and like

Jeff Matevish: 6:42

4,000 times before, I saw that too, 4,000 25% linen. So, it's essentially fabric, yeah, which is why you can, like, fold $1 bill. Well, any bill, US Bill, I think it's something like on the order of, like, 4,000 times. times before it rips. Yeah.

Drew Thomas: 6:59

Yeah, which is pretty crazy. And it'll, it'll make it through the wash. When, you know, if you put a piece of tablet paper in your, in your shirt pocket and throw it through the washer, it's not likely to survive, yeah, where money generally will because it is technically not paper, which is interesting. And so, did you see, what's, so what's the average lifespan of $1 bill?

Jeff Matevish: 7:19

I don't think I saw that. It's a few years, maybe? Four or five years?

Drew Thomas: 7:24

It's less than that for a $1 bill.

Jeff Matevish: 7:26

I know it's different for every denomination. Yeah, because one, are we, we use $1 bills more often than another denomination. But yeah, no, what is it? Putting it in a card or something. They want

Drew Thomas: 7:33

So, typically, it's about 18 months. Oh, okay, so you get about a year and a half out of your average $1 bill. Okay. And so from a banking perspective, we actually at the banks, we will, the banks, the banks in the US are essentially

Jeff Matevish: 7:46

be less than 50% but you have to be able to prove

Drew Thomas: 7:46

Sure, yeah, you know. So, responsible for putting money into circulation and then taking a little more than half of it. it back out of circulation. So, if you have a very, you know, if you go to the bank and you say, hey, I want new money, right?

Jeff Matevish: 7:56

You have to be able to tell what kind of bill Sometimes you can ask for that. A lot of times that, a lot of times that happens around the holidays, people go in, yeah, ask for, you know, new... it was, you know, yeah.

Drew Thomas: 9:24

Yeah, ideally, yeah, you can, it's which, which you can tell, like, unless you really, you can't have any portion of a physical bill that doesn't have at least some indicator of what the denomination is, right, right. So, yeah, so, so that's how money comes in and out of circulation. Okay, right. So, an average dollar bill about 18 months now, that may change. As you pointed out, there are people that are spending less and less cash. So, as cash gets handled less and less, you may start to find that.

Jeff Matevish: 9:54

Well, and I mean, with inflation, everything costs more than $1 now. So, there's no dollar menu anymore. So, I mean, maybe higher denominations, their life expectancy is going to be getting lower and lower and lower too.

Drew Thomas: 10:07

Yeah, you're right. That could happen. Now I will say that in other countries, you're starting to see less and less of this kind of money, and you're starting to see a lot more polymer money, essentially, almost plastic, right. And with those you can get into a lot of stuff, which is anti-counterfeits and so forth, because they can make parts of it transparent and parts of it not, and they can use all kinds of different colors. And there's things you can do with polymers that are a lot harder to do with, with paper, okay, or fabric, as ours is. You know, we have, we definitely have anti-counterfeiting measures in bills.

Jeff Matevish: 10:48

Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

Drew Thomas: 10:50

Sure. Yeah, go ahead. What did you find?

Jeff Matevish: 10:52

I mean, we were talking about the composition of the bills. I mean, you can see little strands of, what is it red and blue fibers?

Drew Thomas: 11:02

The red and blue in there, yeah.

Jeff Matevish: 11:04

That's for, for anti-counterfeit. The raised seal, that's for anti-counterfeit. The security stripe, anti-counterfeit.

Drew Thomas: 11:12

Now, which bills have a security stripe is the question?

Jeff Matevish: 11:15

Not the one, not the one.

Drew Thomas: 11:16

Yeah, not the one, right. Yeah.

Jeff Matevish: 11:17

So, I don't know what other, I mean, I, I'm pretty sure five is the first one.

Drew Thomas: 11:21

I'm pretty sure the five has one. You can hold up to the light, yeah, and you can see the watermark. And there's watermarks, yeah, the $100 bill has the hologram, which is, okay, yeah, kind of like holographic stripe.

Jeff Matevish: 11:32

So, I did find one that was interesting in my research. So, all of the small lines around the ones in the corners. What was that called? They were calling that the Guilloché. Okay, okay, so that's been adopted by other countries too. But back in the day, it was so intricate that it was hard to counterfeit. Yeah, it was like, anti-counterfeit measure, was just the intricacy.

Drew Thomas: 11:57

you can also find, and I honestly don't know, I'd have to look, I'd have to look very closely at the number, at the one, but there is a, if you look at the back of the one, there's a, there's a very small line that goes around the outside, the whole outside border. If you, if you look at that under high magnification, that's actually type, really, yeah, that is actually type. It is printed so small, but it is legible under a, under magnification, so that again, like, if you, if you were to try to photocopy this or something like that, it's not going to come out. It's going to come out as a line, huh? But if you actually look at it under print a photo on modern printers? Yeah, yeah. A magnification, it is actually printed type. lot of printers have that, you know, anti-counterfeiting in it, so that you can't simply just photocopy it and make yourself one. But again...

Jeff Matevish: 12:53

Even in, I mean, I mean, we're in marketing and stuff, so, I mean, we use Photoshop. I've tried to put money into Photoshop, like a stock photo and, and it will not let me do it. Yeah, I don't know if you've run into that before or not.

Drew Thomas: 13:06

I have not, okay, no, but, but I can understand that that's a possibility now. Now, technically speaking, you can print an image of, of cash, so long as it is not the same size as legal tender. Okay, so you've can, you can print it. And that's how a lot of these, like magazines, yeah, like that, get away with, like, because they can, yeah, they can make it larger because you know that that's not, that's not physically the same thing. And then you're, even that that we talked about, like, what is made out of, it feels different. Like, pick up a piece of printer paper, then pick up a piece of money, and you will definitely feel, oh yeah, difference in terms of what that's made out of. Yep. Now again, we're gonna talk a lot about, we're gonna talk mostly about $1 bills here, but for the most part, ones are not counterfeited all that much, and the reason for that is kind of obvious. You'd have to get a lot of them. You'd have to counterfeit a ton of them for it to be useful. Let me ask you this, how much would a million dollars' worth of $1 bills weigh?

Jeff Matevish: 14:21

So, I did find, I'm not gonna do the math, but it's not as much as you think. I think it was 454 $1 bills is a pound. Okay, so extrapolate that.

Drew Thomas: 14:34

Yeah, it's about a ton.

Jeff Matevish: 14:35

Is it?

Drew Thomas: 14:35

It's about a ton. So, if you're gonna haul around 2,200 pounds worth of ones, and you're gonna get $1 million. It's not worth counterfeiting when you think about this, so.

Jeff Matevish: 14:45

And, and every bill, I mean, that would be a new charge, right? You know, you have 1 million, 1 million counts of counterfeit.

Drew Thomas: 14:51

Right. Oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, Secret Service is gonna, you know, be very interested in you, yeah, if that's what you're up to. Yeah, so we can talk about counterfeiting and all that kind of stuff too. And probably another one that's probably a whole conversation. But, so let's talk a little bit about the, the design of the $1 bill. Because I think that there's from, again, you know, we started thinking about this from the from the standpoint that, you know, it was just Independence Day, and I'm thinking a lot of the patriotism, symbolism and stuff that's on the one right? So, if you look at the, at the, the front of the $1 bill, we can kind of start there, because there's, there's, there's maybe not as much to talk about, but there is, there is a decent amount of stuff to talk about in the in, in the front of the $1 bill. So, obviously you've got George Washington, yep, right. Who was?

Jeff Matevish: 15:41

Not the first on the $1 bill.

Drew Thomas: 15:44

Not the first on the $1 bill. Also, yeah, to get into, to get into some real deep history, technically, not the first President of the United States, either. No, no, but, but yeah. Who was, so who was the first person on the $1 bill? Do you know?

Jeff Matevish: 16:01

Salmon?

Drew Thomas: 16:01

It was that it was Salmon, yeah, Salmon.

Jeff Matevish: 16:04

I don't, I don't know his, I remember his full name.

Drew Thomas: 16:07

Yeah, so, so it was, it was Salmon Chase.

Jeff Matevish: 16:09

Salmon, Chase, okay.

Drew Thomas: 16:10

Salmon Chase, he was the, he was the Secretary of the Treasury at the time that the $1 bill, the printed $1 bill, was first introduced. So, he put himself on the one-dollar bill. Interestingly enough, live, live people, living people are no longer permitted to be on money.

Jeff Matevish: 16:26

I did see that. Yeah, yeah.

Drew Thomas: 16:28

So, you have to be passed on in order to be recognized on a, on a, on a piece of US currency today, but at the time, Salmon was like, hey, I think my mug would look great, so.

Jeff Matevish: 16:39

You gotta get advertising, yeah.

Drew Thomas: 16:41

You gotta be pretty full of yourself, though, don't you to be like, you know what? I'm gonna put me on that money, yeah. But what I will say is, the, the Treasurer, the Secretary of the Treasury, I'm sorry, is on every single dollar bill since 1963 so, so the, the dollar bill as we, as we see it today, has not really significantly changed since 1963 right? So, most of the other bills have gone through some serious updates and changes, but the $1 bill has not. Again, mostly because there's just not a lot of counterfeiting and stuff out there for the $1 bill, right? But if you look at the front, so in addition to George Washington's portrait, and to the, to the left of George Washington's portrait, and near the bottom, you will see that, that is the signature of the Treasurer of the United States, yep. And then to the right of George Washington, there's a signature there that is the Secretary of the Treasury. And those are both as of whenever the bill was printed. So, you can actually see there's a series mark to the to the right of George Washington as well, that says series, and then a year. So, that tells you when the bill was printed, and then the, the signatures should, should be appropriate to that time frame, right? So, that is technically an anti-sort of counterfeiting measure, right? Because if you don't know who, the Secretary, you know if you, if you, if you were to screen print this or change this or something, and then you have the wrong year with the wrong names, yeah, right. You know, not that many people would recognize that. But technically speaking, that is the way.

Jeff Matevish: 18:18

So, did you, did you find anything in your research of what the letter is inside the seal?

Drew Thomas: 18:24

Go ahead tell okay, what is it?

Jeff Matevish: 18:26

So, that is the branch that's, of the Federal Reserve that issued the bill. Okay, so if you have an "A", that's Boston, "B" is New York,"C" is Philadelphia, "D" is Cleveland, "E" is Richmond, "F" is Atlanta, "G" is Chicago, "H" is Louis, "I" is Minneapolis,"J" is Kansas, "K" is Dallas, and "L" is San Francisco. So, the one in my hand is, was printed in San Francisco.

Drew Thomas: 18:53

Yeah, and where did you say "F" was?

Jeff Matevish: 18:56

"F" was Atlanta.

Drew Thomas: 18:56

Atlanta. So, mine's from Atlanta. So, that's interesting. And so that also tells you that, basically, if you have a, what, a "K" or above in that little circle, it's probably not legal.

Jeff Matevish: 19:08

Well, "K", "K" is Dallas, and "L" is San Francisco. so that if they have an error, they can go back

Drew Thomas: 19:13

Oh, sorry, yeah. Sorry, "M" or above. Sorry, "M" or above, right, right. It's "M" or above. Yeah, so, so you have that. And then, of course, this, you know, right above that, this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private. There's also, if you look to the, so, where you look at the letter, if you look to the left of that, there is a number, right, and that number is the Federal Reserve District Seal. And then you also have to the left of that, a note position, letter and number. And so, there's a tiny little letter and number in there too. So, again, these are things that most people probably don't even notice. to that sheet and see if that error was on every bill. So, basically, what you're so, what they're looking at is they're looking at the engraving, the engraving?

Jeff Matevish: 20:08

Yep, yeah, yeah. So, this is like, your lot number, I guess.

Drew Thomas: 20:11

Okay, so essentially, if there's an issue that they find on multiple bills of that thing, they can go back and look at the engraving and make sure that there's not a problem.

Jeff Matevish: 20:15

And they can dispose of that, that sheet, or sheets, however many that was affected.

Drew Thomas: 20:22

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So, they do come off the printer in sheets.

Jeff Matevish: 20:25

You can buy them, I found out too.

Drew Thomas: 20:28

You can. I actually have one.

Jeff Matevish: 20:31

And it's more than the value of what's printed on it.

Drew Thomas: 20:34

True. I have one from the 1980s. My uncle worked for the federal government, and he, whenever I was a kid, he gave me a sheet, an uncut sheet, of $1 bills. And I still have it.

Jeff Matevish: 20:46

Yeah, it's like, it's like, double or triple. I looked it up just even today, because I was curious. If you know, hey, I get a sheet of $1 bills. We get 10 $1 bills for$10, no.

Drew Thomas: 20:54

Yeah, I think, I believe, I want to say I'd have to go back and find it, I know where it is, but I think there's 20 to a sheet.

Jeff Matevish: 21:02

Okay, they had different, they had different amounts on it.

Drew Thomas: 21:04

Yeah. So, so if that's true, then my, my $20 sheet of is, like, worth $40,$40-$50, yeah, $40-$50 bucks. So, it's not too bad, yeah. Thanks, Uncle John.

Jeff Matevish: 21:16

You can buy shredded money too, I found out.

Drew Thomas: 21:20

Can you?

Jeff Matevish: 21:20

You can, yeah, because, like, what you said, like, when, when a bank gets a bill from a customer that can no longer be used, they send it back, and the Fed shreds it and sells it and makes a profit off of shredded money.

Drew Thomas: 21:33

I mean, there's nothing, I'm nothing wrong with that, I guess, you know, I, I have seen pens and things like that with, like, shredded money, like in like the circular and, like the clear part of the pen, things like that. Yeah, I guess that that, I think we might have even had some here at one point. I'd have to go back and look, but, yeah, so, so that's kind of cool. So, you know, and then, of course, you have your, your serial number, Federal Reserve, The United States of America, all that stuff. So, that's, I mean, I think that's, I think that's, I think most people probably spend most of the time looking at the front of a $1 bill. Yeah. Now on the...

Jeff Matevish: 22:06

One more thing on the front, symbol wise that I have found was a lot of leaves. So, those are Laurel leaves, and that is honor and wisdom and also military victory, it symbolizes.

Drew Thomas: 22:17

Oh, nice. Okay, yeah, there are, you're right, there are a lot of leaves on there. I didn't, I didn't, I did not realize they were Laurels, but that does make sense. Yeah, so, so if you look at the back or the, the obverse, as you, as we, as we tend to call it in, in financial parlance. So, you've got, again, just an absolute ton of very intricate engraving work that goes around, which, again, you know, helps to make sure that if this is photocopied, or something like that, those things, those lines that you see, would be very, very, very difficult to reproduce in that kind of a crisp tone, although today's photocopiers and so forth, I'm sure are better than you know, back, yeah, in the day, it's not like an old mimeograph or ditto machine back in the day, yeah. But you have the Great Seal of the United States depicted on the back, essentially. You have, a lot of people don't realize that, I don't think, but that actually is the pyramid, and then the, the eagle, are two sides of the Great Seal of the United States. One is usually the front, the other is the back. But they've, they've shown both here. So, that's what you have there. So, you so, so what did you find out about? I'm gonna let you sort of say what you know about, what do you know about the Great Seal? Anything?

Jeff Matevish: 23:31

I know that there are 13 steps on the pyramid.

Drew Thomas: 23:34

There are 13 steps on the pyramid, which is also unfinished. It is also unfinished, yeah. So, certain, symbolic, yeah, so 13 rows on the, of block on the pyramid, yeah. What else you got?

Jeff Matevish: 23:45

So, the pyramid itself stood for stability and timelessness, and that's why that it was unfinished was the timelessness portion. The eye is the Eye of the Providence, watching over and ensuring the endurance of the structure of the American government, yeah, and then that...

Drew Thomas: 24:06

You got lots of, you got lots of Latin in there too.

Jeff Matevish: 24:08

Yeah, conspiracy theories on the eye, you know?

Drew Thomas: 24:12

Oh, yeah, there's all kinds of stuff. Like, it's all, it's all free masonry, which a lot of the symbols, I mean, look, a lot of the symbols are similar, right, right? And it's because most of the founding fathers were Freemasons. But that doesn't necessarily mean that there's some sort of, like, dark government conspiracy, right? It's just that they were Freemasons, right? There's a lot of Freemasons today, too.

Jeff Matevish: 24:32

Roman, roman numerals on the bottom, MDCCLXXVI, which is 1776, which was our independence. Yes. The, the eagle. So, I had found that, I don't remember who it was, but we almost didn't have the eagle as, as a symbol.

Drew Thomas: 24:52

We did not. We did not. It was Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin did not like the eagle.

Jeff Matevish: 24:57

It was gonna be a turkey.

Drew Thomas: 24:59

He wanted a turkey. Yeah, yeah, he did. He wanted a turkey, which, I'm sorry, but I got to disagree with you there, Ben. He said that the turkey was native to the, to North America, and was a very, what was the word he used? I think it was a very, very stout bird, or noble, like that noble bird. He didn't, he did not think the same of the eagle. But thankfully, I'm glad Ben Franklin lost that wager, yeah, because the turkey on the back of the one would have looked a little weird. But so, what else? What else about the eagle?

Jeff Matevish: 25:33

13 stars above the eagle, again, symbolizing the 13 Colonies, olive branch on the one side that the eagle was looking at, and actually, so there was 13 arrows in the other talon, right, and there was a coin that was minted, and the olive branch, and the arrows were reversed, and that caused an uproar, because the arrows symbolized war, and it was in The dominant claw, dominant talons. So, people thought that we were okay with war and not with peace, as opposed to, that we were okay with peace and not with war.

Drew Thomas: 26:06

Yeah, essentially, you're right. I mean, essentially the idea is, you know, the, the olive branches symbolize peace, the, the arrows war, but the idea that the eagle looks toward peace first, right? We're willing and capable of defending ourselves, but we would prefer to go toward peace. Which is, which is a good thing.

Jeff Matevish: 26:25

Shield had the, the top of the shield represents Congress, again, 13 stripes. 13 is a big number on all of these

Drew Thomas: 26:34

Yeah, yeah. What? Which is really funny, because, bills. you know, for some reason, there's the whole triskaidekaphobia thing, of like, fear of the number 13 and all that kind of stuff. It's huge in history. There, there are, there are hotels that do not have, I mean, they have a 13th floor, but they don't have a 13th floor, right, right? But yet, because we had the original 13 Colonies, there's 13 all through our symbolism and so forth, yeah, which I think is, is pretty cool. So, yeah, there's, there's, so there's, there's all sorts of really, really cool stuff there. And I think that sometimes when you, when you, when you spend money, and you take it, you sort of take it for granted. And I think a lot of other countries do the same thing. They put a lot of symbolism, a lot of thought into their country's currency, obviously, do you know? Do you know who the number one person

Jeff Matevish: 27:20

I do not, who?

Drew Thomas: 27:22

Queen Elizabeth. on currency in the world is?

Jeff Matevish: 27:28

Oh, really?

Drew Thomas: 27:29

Yeah, now obviously she's being phased out, right? Because, you know, having passed on, anything newly created by any country that utilizes UK currency is now being issued with King Charles on there. But Queen Elizabeth was the reigning monarch for such a long time that between Canadian currency, UK currency, she was the person that was most represented on currency for many, many years, and obviously she was alive, so.

Jeff Matevish: 28:03

Yeah, their, their, their rules are a little

Drew Thomas: 28:05

A little bit different, little bit different. bit different than ours. So, and there's, you know, there, there are a lot of, there's a lot of symbolism in a lot of the other notes and so

Jeff Matevish: 28:12

Yeah, I have not, you're right, you know, and I'm forth out there too. But I think the $1 bill, because it's so common, and people use it all the time, shoving it into vending machines, things like that, a lot of people don't take a cash guy, so I have no excuse. the time to really look at it.

Drew Thomas: 28:30

That's right, you are a cash guy. You're not, you, then you so you should know even more. Yeah, so I think, I think that's pretty cool, yeah, and, you know, so, I mean, we can talk about the other, you know, the other bills, things like that maybe, at some point, maybe we turn this into a small series that we kind of revisit these things from time to time. Go back and look at coins and things too, because there's a lot of symbolism in coins. You know, obviously George Washington appears, not only on the $1 bill, but also on the quarter. You have, who else? We have Lincoln, that's on both the penny and the five. And so there's, there's a number of presidents that are represented twice. You have a couple of people that were not presidents that are on money, like Alexander Hamilton, who was, I told you this earlier, let's see if you remember.

Jeff Matevish: 29:16

Hamilton was...

Drew Thomas: 29:18

A star of a famous Broadway show, no.$10 bill right. And the $10 bill, and he was

Jeff Matevish: 29:22

$10 bill. Secretary of the, the first Secretary of the Treasury right. And interestingly enough, the$10 bill, the only bill where they are facing, the, where the, where the portrait faces. Oh, the opposite way.

Drew Thomas: 29:40

The opposite way, huh? The portraits always face to the right as you're looking at them, except for Hamilton's, which faces to the left.

Jeff Matevish: 29:47

You are right, which is interesting, yeah, cash guy got examples of everything here.

Drew Thomas: 29:53

of stuff that you can kind of look at and, like, yeah, like, really, kind of dig into when it comes to that stuff, so. I find, I find that kind of stuff fascinating. I just think that, you know, somebody put a lot of effort into this, and nobody pays attention.

Jeff Matevish: 30:10

Okay, Drew, it's cool.

Drew Thomas: 30:11

He said, reluctantly. Yeah, I know I'm a weird history nerd, but I just, I think it's neat. So, and for those of you that are listening this far, you should also share this with as many people as possible to prove that I'm right and that Jeff is wrong.

Jeff Matevish: 30:29

Yes, prove me wrong.

Drew Thomas: 30:30

Yeah.

Jeff Matevish: 30:32

I dare you. I double dog dare ya.

Drew Thomas: 30:34

Yeah. Share, share, share this episode with as many people as you possibly can and talk to them about the symbolism of the $1 bill. So, please do. Yeah, and in the meantime, yeah, we'll come back, we'll come back toward the end of the month with another episode which is, which is fun stuff, yeah. What do we, what are we talking about? Do we know?

Jeff Matevish: 30:52

You'll have to find out.

Drew Thomas: 30:53

Okay. Jeff's being cryptic. This is awesome. All right, I think that's it. Got anything else? No, alright.

Jeff Matevish: 31:01

See you Dew.

Drew Thomas: 31:01

See you later.

Jeff Matevish: 31:07

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