Scott Shephard Photography

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10-07-09 Seeing Green: "Annuit Coeptis"

The phrase that comprises the title of this post means "he approves of this." Implicit in the Great Seal of the US is the idea that God approves of the formation of the United States, though it is a mere human who is saying this. The Greeks might call this "hubris."

So what about the photo? I have always been fascinated by the fine scroll work that goes in to making US currency more difficult to counterfeit. In spite of this detail, the simple color scheme makes our paper money the easiest in the world to copy. Thus, the newly designed bills of larger denominations are wildly colored - at least by older "greenback" standards. But the dollar has not changed.

Wikipedia article

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