This stamp lets you put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill in an act of 'civil disobedience'Joel Shannon, USA TODAY
Published 12:18 p.m. ET May 24, 2019 | Updated 4:01 p.m. ET May 24, 2019
The redesigned $20 bill may not be out for years, but people can put Harriet Tubman on their bills now.
A "Harriet Tubman Stamp" aims to allow Americans to put Tubman's face on $20 bills, despite the Trump administration's announcement this week that the official bill's redesign will be delayed.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said during a congressional hearing Wednesday that a redesign of the $20 bill to feature Tubman – an abolitionist hero – would not be ready in time for a planned 2020 release. Mnuchin cited "counterfeiting issues" as a reason for a delay he projected to last eight years.
The news has brought new attention to a previously released product: An ink stamp that can replace Andrew Jackson's face on a $20 bill with Tubman's likeness. The single-color stamp is designed to place an outline of Tubman's face over the former president's.
In promoting the stamps on social media, the product's Instagram account referred to using the stamp as an act of "civil disobedience."
The product has attracted enough attention that its Etsy listing was sold out as of Friday morning. For those who live in New York City, the product's site says there are two businesses that serve as "stamping stations" in the city.
The stamp's creator – Dano Wall, 33 – has a goal of putting 5,000 stamps into circulation, Wall told the Washington Post. It's been a project in the making since 2017, the Post reports.
“My goal is to get 5,000 stamps out there,” Wall told the newspaper. “If there are 5,000 people consistently stamping currency, we could get a significant percent of circulating $20 bills (with the Tubman) stamp, at which point it would be impossible to ignore.”
https://www.instagram.com/tubmanstamp/?utm_source=ig_embedtubmanstamp
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Minting some fresh Tubmans #civildisobedience #tubmantwenty #harriettubman #tubmanstamp #womenonmoney #RepresentationMatters @tubmanstamp
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The Tubman Stamp's website includes information for those interested in making their own stamps. It also shows video of stamped bills being accepted by automated machines.
Is the Harriet Tubman stamp legal?
The Tubman Stamp website says that using the stamp is legal, citing The Stampede, an effort to stamp bills with messages "to protest big money in politics."
"Though anti-counterfeiting laws prohibit the willful destruction of, and stamping of advertisements upon, paper money, pursuant to I.I.18 U.S.C. § 333 of the United States Code, stamped currency is fit for circulation so long as its denomination remains legible," the stamp's site says.
Guidance from the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing addresses the defacement of currency, but does not directly address the stamping of Federal Reserve bills:
Defacement of currency is a violation of Title 18, Section 333 of the United States Code. Under this provision, currency defacement is generally defined as follows: Whoever mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, Federal Reserve Bank, or Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both. Contributing: William Cummings, USA TODAY
Videos at
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/05/24/harriet-tubman-20-bill-stamp-puts-tubman-face-twenty/1219952001/