The almighty dollar has found an angel.
To promote Mother's Day, on May 9, (Quicken.com), a unit of Intuit Inc., is selling 10,000 $1 bills -- for $2.50 each -- to benefit the National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organizations. But instead of showing George Washington's distant grimace, the bills feature a demure angel in the center oval, coyly looking over her wings.It's no forgery.
The bills are the brainchild of Shelly Reale, an entrepreneur in Seminole, Fla. After consulting with the U.S. Treasury, its Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and the Secret Service, she found a way to change the appearance of dollar bills without violating that sacrosanct U.S. Code, Section 333, which prohibits the mutilation, defacement or disfigurement of U.S. currency.
Reale, who says she produces her special bills only for charitable groups, says the Treasury Department sent her a book "3 inches thick" listing the rules on U.S. currency.
Reale's secret is a temporary adhesive that pastes a sticker of the angel over the nation's first president like a Post-It note. "We made sure it's removable," Reale promises. "We're messing with U.S. currency, so we gotta cover our rears."
In the past few years, Reale's company, White Reale & Associates, has made cash stickers for other companies, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which pasted the Easter bunny over Thomas Jefferson on 500,000 $2 bills as a benefit for the Children's Miracle Network. And Easter Seals New Jersey made "Kris Kringle Currency," sticking Santa on dollar bills. All told, the bills have raised nearly $1 million for various charities, Reale says.