The United States ten-dollar bill ($10) is a denomination of United States currency. The first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, is currently featured on the obverse of the bill, while the U.S. Treasury is featured on the reverse. (Hamilton is one of two non-presidents featured on currently issued U.S. bills. The other is Benjamin Franklin, on the $100 bill. In addition to this, Hamilton is one of only two persons featured on U.S. currency who was not born in the continental United States, as he was from the West Indies. The other, Kamehameha I, appears on the 2008 Hawaii state quarter.) All $10 bills issued today are Federal Reserve Notes.
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing says the average life of a $10 bill in circulation is 18 months before it is replaced due to wear. Approximately 6% of all US banknotes printed in 2009 were $10 bills. Ten dollar bills are delivered by Federal Reserve Banks in yellow straps.
The source of the face on the $10 bill is John Trumbull’s 1805 portrait of Hamilton that belongs to the portrait collection of New York City Hall. The $10 bill is the only U.S. paper currency in circulation in which the portrait faces to the left (the $100,000 bill featured a portrait of Woodrow Wilson facing to the left, but was used only for intra-government transactions).
Read more about United States Ten-dollar Bill: Large Size Note History, Small Size Note History, Nicknames
Famous quotes containing the words ten-dollar bill, united states, united, states, ten-dollar and/or bill:
“You must think I am a high-priced man.... Fifteen dollars is enough for the job. I send you a receipt for fifteen dollars, and return to you a ten-dollar bill.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“I do not know that the United States can save civilization but at least by our example we can make people think and give them the opportunity of saving themselves. The trouble is that the people of Germany, Italy and Japan are not given the privilege of thinking.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“What makes the United States government, on the whole, more tolerable—I mean for us lucky white men—is the fact that there is so much less of government with us.... But in Canada you are reminded of the government every day. It parades itself before you. It is not content to be the servant, but will be the master; and every day it goes out to the Plains of Abraham or to the Champs de Mars and exhibits itself and toots.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A little group of wilful men reflecting no opinion but their own have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless and contemptible.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“Wake from thy nest, robin redbreast!
Sing, birds, in every furrow,
And from each bill let music shrill
Give my fair Love good morrow!”
—Thomas Heywood (1575?–1650)