Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 18, 1993                   TAG: 9307160063
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: F-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

OLD MONEY RECYCLED INTO STATIONERY

Best known for its deluxe stationery, Crane & Co., the Massachusetts paper manufacturer, has come up with a new line of recycled stationery made primarily from shredded U.S. currency.

Befitting the source, the paper is called Old Money and will include thank-you notes as well as boxed stationery and pads adorned with dollar signs. Like paper money, the color of Old Money is green.

According to Timothy Crane, a sixth-generation descendant of the company's founder, the idea of producing Old Money was a response to a Federal Reserve Board request to the paper industry for inventive ways to get rid of the 15 million pounds of worn paper bills that it deems unfit for circulation each year.

In 1992 alone, says Joseph R. Coyne, an assistant to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, $96.7 billion worth of currency was taken out of circulation, destroyed and sent to landfills. "It takes up a lot of space," says Coyne.

Crane, whose company produces the paper on which the Bureau of Engraving prints U.S. currency, says, "We were very much aware" of the environmental problems associated with disposing of the money.

He added that although the 100,000 pounds of shredded money that the company used for its first stationery run is "very small compared to 15 million pounds, we hope it is a step in the direction of a larger solution." The Federal Reserve gave Crane the shredded bills gratis, and Crane paid the shipping costs.