Eliminate Dead Presidents!

{Please refer to the very first post below. This post builds on it by extending the idea further.}

There is another way to fold Federal Reserve Notes that creates a golden rectangle, preserves the two serial numbers on its face in their entirety, and eliminates the image of the dead president in its center. It's a fan-fold over the president's picture bringing the two ends closer together.  This is accomplished in a manner somewhat similar to how MAD magazine describes how to fold their back page to create a new image, but slightly different. Here's how to do it...

THE TAPE METHOD
For a one dollar bill:

1. Make a right-fold nearest to the left-most edge of the left-most alpha-character of the right set of serial numbers, folding the right end over towards the backside. In this example pictured above, this fold is performed alongside the left-most edge of the capital letter "L" of the right serial number, "L 83780228 G".

2. Now, make a left-fold nearest the right-most edge of the right-most alpha-character of the left set of serial numbers, folding the left end over towards the backside. In this example, the fold is performed alongside the right-most edge of the capital letter "G" of the left serial number, "L 83780228 G". This fold may also be guided by folding inbetween the letters "I" and "T" in the phrase along the top of the note, "THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA".

3. Now, bring these two folds together to meet alongside each other. Check this new shorter length of the remaining bill visible to sight. It should be around 10.8 cm; 10.7 cm is the ideal, since the height is 6.6 cm and 10.7 cm divided by 6.6 cm is 1.62 – very close to approximating 1.618. But at this new length of 10.8 cm, the ratio will instead be 1.636 – not too far off and preserving the entire appearance of both serial numbers to keep this legal and satisfy the bank's criteria for accepting this note.

This image is from the "The Staple Method" below, and is being used to illustrate the Omega shape described in Step 4.

4. Cut a piece of clear tape a little longer than the height of the note. Tape one fold with half of the width of the tape running the piece of tape vertically up and down the length of the fold along the outside of the fold facing away from the image of the dead president. Bring the remaining fold alongside the taped fold, and tape the two folds together using the remaining half-width of the tape. You should have a loop of Federal Reserve Note so that if you were to look at this note from the edge, the note with its loop would like the Greek letter Omega.

 

These images are from the "The Staple Method" below, and are intended to illustrate flattening the Omega loop on the backside.

5. Turn this bill over so that its backside is facing up and squash this loop against the two taped folds and crease the two edges of this flattened loop with your thumbnail. Run your thumbnail up and down these creases against the table top upon which this note is resting on. There should be a little bit of tape over-hanging both the top and bottom edges of the note. Carefully bend these remaining bits of tape over towards the backside of the note, and give them a nice crease.

Voila! You're finished!

Now, double-check the new length of this shortened note for similarity to 10.7 cm, or 10.8 cm, or thereabouts.

For five dollar bills, the placement of each fold is slightly different than their placement for a one dollar bill...

1. Make a right-fold along the left side of the vertical stem of the capital letter "T" in the phrase, "THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA". This should cut off a little bit of the left-horizontal top to this letter, and leave a little bit of space to the left of the whole right serial number. In this example pictured above, this right fold is slightly away from the left-most edge of the right serial number, "IL 25025502 C".

2. Now make a left-fold immediately to the right of the last capital letter of the left serial number. In this example, this fold is to the immediate right of the capital letter "C" of "IL 25025502 C".

3-5. Repeat steps three through five above.

Folding a five dollar bill should bring the new length closer to the goal, either 10.7 cm or 10.8 cm.

THE STAPLE METHOD
For a one dollar bill:

Follow steps one through three described above for using "The Tape Method".

 4. Cut a very small piece of tape (I use tan-colored masking tape in this example pictured above). Tape one fold with half of the tape running the piece of tape across the fold facing away from the image of the dead president. Bring the remaining fold alongside the taped fold, and tape the two folds together using the remaining half of the tape. You should have a loop of Federal Reserve Note so that if you were to look at this note from the edge, the note with its loop would like the Greek letter Omega.

5. Turn this bill over so that its backside is facing up and squash this loop against the two taped folds and crease the two edges of this flattened loop with your thumbnail. Run your thumbnail up and down these creases against the table top upon which this note is resting on. There should be a little bit of tape over-hanging both the top and bottom edges of the note. Carefully bend these remaining bits of tape over towards the backside of the note, and give them a nice crease.

 6. If you look closely at the image above, you'll see the little piece of masking tape in the center of the fold, a staple towards the top of the note and beneath the shortened phrase: "FED NOTE" and above another shortened phrase: "THE UNI AMERICA", and a second staple towards the bottom of the note directly covering the two letters: "O R".

7. This image above shows the finished product with a third staple in the center of the fold replacing the little piece of masking tape. Notice how the length of this newly formed golden rectangle is not quite the ideal of 10.7 cm? Oh, well.... There is a solution...

8. Snip a little bit off one or both edges, left or right side. Either one or two millimeters will do the job.

Notice how the right-edge has had four millimeters snipped off? This is the "TAPED" version.

This is the "STAPLED" version. It has had two millimeters snipped off of both edges, left and right.

It is not necessary to snip anything off of a five dollar version since there is enough abundant space inbetween the inside edge of both serial numbers that is greater than what is required for doing this style of folding notes to create a golden rectangle. Notice the excess space, in the example below, to the immediate left of the right-most serial number.