Qualla: Bureau of Engraving and Printing

Bureau of Engraving and Printing: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit APK is not a Womanizer, CC BY-SA 3.0. Walk past the 15th Street SW entrance and you might not notice anything unusual. The building is dignified, Indiana limestone over a steel frame, the kind of federal architecture that recedes politely behind the larger memorials of the National Mall. Then you hear it: the deep rhythmic thump of intaglio presses through the granite trim. Inside, paper runs through machines at thirty-two notes per sheet. Each sheet of distinctive paper, dampened just slightly, is pressed against engraved steel plates so hard the fibers push into the engraved lines and pull the ink out. Six and a half billion dollars in notes leave this building most years. They cost about ten cents each to make.

Image: APK is not a Womanizer | CC BY-SA 3.0

Bureau of Engraving and Printing: Civil War Cash Flow

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Harrison Keely, CC BY 4.0. In July 1861, the Union ran out of coins. The Civil War was three months old and the federal government could not pay its bills, so Congress authorized Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase to issue paper Demand Notes that promised redemption in metal at some later date. The government...

Image: Harrison Keely | CC BY 4.0

Bureau of Engraving and Printing: More Than Money

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing; Imaging by Gwillhickers, Public domain. From its first days the BEP printed more than currency. By 1864 it was making passports for the State Department and money orders for the Post Office. It produced interest-bearing notes, refunding certificates, compound interest Treasury notes, and bonds. Beginning in July 1894 i...

Image: U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing; Imaging by Gwillhickers | Public domain

Bureau of Engraving and Printing: Four, Eight, Twelve, Eighteen, Thirty-Two

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Anthony Inswasty, CC BY-SA 4.0. The arc of BEP history is an arc of increasing efficiency, measured in notes per sheet. The Civil War sheets held four. World War I pushed the presses to eight. The 1929 currency redesign, the first major change since 1861, shrank the bills to their current size and let the Burea...

Image: Anthony Inswasty | CC BY-SA 4.0

Bureau of Engraving and Printing: Two Buildings, Soon One

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Billy Hathorn assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0. The Washington facility is two buildings facing each other across 14th Street. The main building between 14th and 15th streets SW was finished in 1914, its 505-foot neoclassical facade looking across Raoul Wallenberg Place toward the Tidal Basin and the Jefferson Memorial. It is ...

Image: No machine-readable author provided. Billy Hathorn assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY-SA 3.0

Bureau of Engraving and Printing: Other Touches

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit APK is not a Womanizer, CC BY-SA 3.0. The BEP operates its own police force, with 187 officers as of 2020, responsible for protecting the facilities and personnel under a memorandum of understanding with the DC government. The Bureau also runs the U.S. Currency Reader Program, which provides free battery-powered iBil...

Image: APK is not a Womanizer | CC BY-SA 3.0