Around the World: Living Person on U.S. Note?
Could a Bureau of Engraving and Printing souvenir card provide a legal path to depicting a living president on a proposed $250 commemorative note?
In recent months, there has been a suggestion of a new $250 bank note on which a vignette of current U.S. President Donald J. Trump would appear. The proposed note is meant to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary. Obviously, Republicans think it’s a good idea, while Democrats disagree.
On March 26, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent announced that Trump’s signature will appear on future bank notes. According to Bessent, “Under President Trump’s leadership, we are on a path toward unprecedented economic growth, lasting dollar dominance, and fiscal strength and stability. There is no more powerful way to recognize the historic achievements of our great country and President Donald J. Trump than U.S dollar bills bearing his name, and it is only appropriate that this historic currency be issued at the Semiquincentennial.”
When asked about the proposed note featuring the president, Bessent said, “We will stick to the law.”
What Bessent didn’t say is that the Treasury has been looking for a way to make a vignette of the president on a bank note legal despite the Thayer Amendment of 1866, through which the portrait or likeness of any living person is forbidden to appear on not only bank notes, but on U.S. bonds, securities, and postal currency.
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) requested artistic concepts for a possible $250 design. In response to a Washington Post newspaper inquiry, a Treasury spokesman said, “Should this legislative mandate be signed into law, the BEP is moving proactively to produce a $250 commemorative note which will appropriately recognize the 250th anniversary of our great nation.”
The legislative mandate of which the spokesman spoke is the Donald J. Trump $250 Bill Act, HR 1761. That bill was initially introduced in February 2025 by Representative Joe Wilson (R. South Carolina). The legislation has since stalled in the House Committee on Financial Services. The proposed legislation was written in such a way as to create a legal exception to the Thayer Amendment rather than repeal the amendment.
It appears the Thayer Amendment’s laundry list just about covers all the bases. Or does it? As with almost anything, there is always a possible loophole. In this case, that loophole, which at the time this is being written does not appear to have been considered by the Treasury, is the Souvenir Card.
There is a Souvenir Card Collectors Society that will vouch for the “official” and “semi-official” cards that have been authorized and printed by the government or its contract security printers in the past. These colorful cards can feature just about anything. Why not make a BEP souvenir card on which a fantasy $250 bank note appears? Not to add too much fuel to this fire, but the BEP could charge the face value of this fantasy to collectors interested in it.
The BEP has, in the past, issued several coin and currency sets. These sets include facsimiles of past bank notes, but are facsimiles, not something that could be removed from the set and spent.
Since BEP souvenir cards are not a form of a financial instrument, the cards don’t appear on the list of items on which a living person can’t be featured under the Thayer Amendment. Could this be a way through which the proposed note could become a reality?
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