Monday, January 14, 2013

Timothy Geithner's Signature Not Fit For Print


Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's signature before and after. He had to change his autograph to appear on U.S. currency.

You've probably got a dollar or two in your pocket with Timothy Geithner's signature on it. But the Treasury Secretary's John Hancock wasn't always, shall we say, legible. He had to change his autograph from this Timothy
        Geithner's original signature to this Timothy Geithner's new signature when his signature was added to the storied list of those featured on our nation's currency.
Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal squeezed this curious detail out of Geithner during his exclusive interview Thursday afternoon in San Francisco, which airs Friday on Marketplace.
Kai Ryssdal: I gotta ask you about your handwriting. Is it true that this used to be your signature Timothy
          Geithner's original signature and you changed it into that chicken scratch?
Timothy Geithner: Yes it is true.
Ryssdal: And why would you do that?
Geithner: You mean from this Timothy
          Geithner's original signature to that Timothy Geithner's new signature?
Ryssdal: Yeah.
Geithner: You mean you like this one Timothy
          Geithner's original signature? I thought you liked the one on the one dollar bill Timothy
          Geithner's new signature.
Ryssdal: No, that one Timothy
          Geithner's new signature is horrible. I like that one Timothy
          Geithner's original signature.
Geithner: Well, I think on the dollar bill I had to write something where people could read my name. That’s the rationale.
Ryssdal: Really?
Geithner: I didn’t try for elegance. I tried for clarity.
Ryssdal: 'Cause you know Mrs. Quiggly, my 1st grade teacher, she would have given me the big F on that one.
Geithner: Well, I took handwriting in the third grade in New Delhi, India, so I probably did not get the best instruction on handwriting.
Some might say both versions are better than that of some of the past signatures featured on U.S. Currency, as seen here.


Signers of U.S. Currency

From 1928 to the present day, forty-five different individuals have signed U.S. currency for the Treasury: twenty-seven Secretaries of the Treasury, eighteen Treasurers of the United States, and one Register of the Treasury. The table below lists all these signers of small-size currency, in alphabetical order, and presents a specimen of each signature.
For information on which series, denominations, and types of currency carry each of these signatures, see the chronology of small-size notes. Also available is a complete listing of all Treasury signatures since the introduction of U.S. paper currency in 1861, as well as separate chronological lists of Registers of the Treasury, Treasurers of the United States, and Secretaries of the Treasury (though I still don't have illustrations of most of the pre-1928 signatures), and a list of the Federal Reserve Bank officials whose signatures appear on the small-size Federal Reserve Bank Notes of Series 1929.
Signature Name, Position, Term
Robert Bernard Anderson
Secretary, 7/29/1957 - 1/20/1961
James Addison Baker
Secretary, 2/4/1985 - 8/17/1988
Romana Acosta Bañuelos
Treasurer, 12/17/1971 - 2/14/1974
Joseph Walker Barr
Secretary, 12/21/1968 - 1/20/1969
Lloyd Bentsen
Secretary, 1/20/1993 - 12/22/1994
Werner Michael Blumenthal
Secretary, 1/23/1977 - 8/4/1979
Nicholas Frederick Brady
Secretary, 9/15/1988 - 1/17/1993
Angela Marie Buchanan
Treasurer, 3/17/1981 - 7/5/1983
Anna Escobedo Cabral
Treasurer, 12/13/2004 - 1/20/2009
Georgia Neese Clark
Treasurer, 6/21/1949 - 1/27/1953
John Bowden Connally
Secretary, 2/11/1971 - 6/12/1972
Clarence Douglas Dillon
Secretary, 1/21/1961 - 4/1/1965
Dorothy Andrews Elston
Treasurer, 5/8/1969 - 9/17/1970
Henry Hamill Fowler
Secretary, 4/1/1965 - 12/20/1968
Timothy Franz Geithner
Secretary, 1/26/2009 - present
Kathryn O'Hay Granahan
Treasurer, 1/3/1963 - 11/22/1966
George Magoffin Humphrey
Secretary, 1/21/1953 - 7/29/1957
Edward Everett Jones
Register, 1/22/1929 - 5/31/1933
William Alexander Julian
Treasurer, 6/1/1933 - 5/29/1949
Dorothy Andrews Kabis
Treasurer, 9/17/1970 - 7/3/1971
David Matthew Kennedy
Secretary, 1/22/1969 - 2/10/1971
Rosario Marin
Treasurer, 8/16/2001 - 6/30/2003
Andrew William Mellon
Secretary, 3/4/1921 - 2/12/1932
George William Miller
Secretary, 8/7/1979 - 1/20/1981
Ogden Livingston Mills
Secretary, 2/13/1932 - 3/4/1933
Henry Morgenthau
Secretary, 1/1/1934 - 7/22/1945
Azie Taylor Morton
Treasurer, 9/12/1977 - 1/20/1981
Francine Irving Neff
Treasurer, 6/21/1974 - 1/19/1977
Paul Henry O'Neill
Secretary, 1/20/2001 - 12/31/2002
Katherine Davalos Ortega
Treasurer, 9/22/1983 - 7/1/1989
Henry Merritt Paulson
Secretary, 7/10/2006 - 1/20/2009
Ivy Baker Priest
Treasurer, 1/28/1953 - 1/29/1961
Donald Thomas Regan
Secretary, 1/22/1981 - 2/1/1985
Rosa Gumataotao Rios
Treasurer, 8/6/2009 - present
Robert Edward Rubin
Secretary, 1/11/1995 - 7/2/1999
George Pratt Shultz
Secretary, 7/12/1972 - 5/8/1974
William Edward Simon
Secretary, 5/8/1974 - 1/20/1977
Elizabeth Rudel Smith
Treasurer, 1/30/1961 - 4/13/1962
John William Snow
Secretary, 2/3/2003 - 6/29/2006
John Wesley Snyder
Secretary, 7/25/1946 - 1/20/1953
Lawrence Henry Summers
Secretary, 7/2/1999 - 1/20/2001
Harold Theodore Tate
Treasurer, 5/31/1928 - 1/17/1929
Catalina Vasquez Villalpando
Treasurer, 11/20/1989 - 1/20/1993
Frederick Moore Vinson
Secretary, 7/23/1945 - 7/23/1946
Mary Ellen Withrow
Treasurer, 3/1/1994 - 1/20/2001
William Hartman Woodin
Secretary, 3/5/1933 - 12/31/1933
Walter Orr Woods
Treasurer, 1/18/1929 - 5/31/1933

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