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Another batch of thirty-million $100 bills is also awaiting inspection and may also need to be destroyed if the bureau sees the same errors.

This isn’t the first roadblock for the new bills.

In 2010, just a few months before the bills were originally supposed to launch, the bureau noticed another problem. During the printing process, some of the paper developed small creases, causing small areas of the bills to come back blank.

“Eventually they zeroed in on the thread for the motion feature,” David Woldman wrote about the error in early 2013. “When paper normally runs through the presses, it’s hit with more than 100 tons of pressure. Because of that force, the back edge spreads ever so slightly; to the naked eye a dollar is rectangular, but to a currency geek it’s trapezoidal. Somehow, the more rigid thread hosting the motion feature prevented smooth spreading of the usually flexible paper, resulting in the crease.”

In that case, the mistake ended with more than $110-billion in cash that needed to be inspected.

The new $100 notes are proving a challenge for printers. New security features, such as a duplicating portrait of Benjamin Franklin and microprinting have been added to make the bill more difficult to counterfeit.

It’s unclear exactly how much this blunder will cost the U.S. taxpayer, but the Atlantic Wire estimates each bill has a price tag of about 12¢, making this a $3.6-million error.

In Canada, new plastic $20, $50 and $100 bills were rolled out with similar security features as well as clear “windows.”

Although there have been no printing errors with the Canadian bills, some people have complained that they are not as resistant to heat as the old bills and can melt if accidentally put in a clothes dryer.

Daniel Kaszor