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 to this 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 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 to that ?
Ryssdal: Yeah.
Geithner: You mean you like this one ? I thought you liked the one on the one dollar bill .
Ryssdal: No, that one is horrible. I like that one .
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