The Tubman $20

In May of 2019, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced that a major change in the design of $20 bills would be delayed.  They delay—which Mnuchin blamed on new security features—will push development out an astounding six years.

The new bills under design will feature a portrait of Harriet Tubman; replacing a certain president Andrew Jackson.

Harriet Tubman was a black woman born into slavery in Maryland in 1822.  She fled to freedom in Philadelphia in 1849, but immediately returned to Maryland and rescued her family.  She went on to work with John Brown and the Underground Railroad, freeing more slaves.  When the country fell into the Civil War, Tubman served for the North, eventually becoming a scout.  She was the first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war when she guided a raid which freed some 700 slaves at Combahee Ferry.

As you might imagine, some people were disappointed in the delay in production of $20 bills featuring Harriet Tubman.

Well, I have some good news for those folks.  Somehow, a Harriet Tubman $20 made it to an ATM here in Montana.

The note is not a counterfeit.  The bill, instead, has been altered by someone.  The image of Harriet Tubman has been stamped overtop Andrew Jackson.

Federal law makes currency defacement a crime.  Defacement, according to the provisions of law, occur when someone “mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together” a bill.  But it is generally accepted that you can stamp currency or write on notes so long as you don’t alter the denomination.

My buddy, Kevin, pulled the bill from the ATM in a recent transaction.  I am surprised the bill made its way to an ATM.  I assumed currency was screened to some extent before distribution in such machines.

The romantic side of me imagines the bills are vetted to remove old or altered bills from circulation before issue in ATM machines, but somehow this one escaped to freedom.

The Proposed Harriet Tubman $20

The ATM $20

—Mitchell Hegman