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This Could Be the Ugliest Bank Note in the World

By Jonathan Chew
AUSTRALIA-MONEY
In this undated handout photo from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) released on April 12, 2016 stacks of new style five Australian dollar note are seen, which will replace its more bland pink, purple and orange predecessor from September 1, 2016. It may be the smallest-denominated banknote for the Australian dollar, but the central bank's new design for the bill attracted an outsized amount of criticism Down Under on April 12, 2016 with detractors describing it as "like vomit" and "hideous". / AFP / STR / XGTY ----EDITORS NOTE ----RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE MANDATORY CREDIT - AFP PHOTO / RESERVE BANK OF AUSTRALIA - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS (Photo credit should read STR/AFP/Getty Images)
Photograph by STR—AFP/Getty Images

The Reserve Bank of Australia has just released its updated design of the country’s five dollar note—and Australians are not feeling it.

The note, which will be issued publicly on Sept. 1, features native animals such as the Prickly Moses wattle and a bird called the Eastern Spinebill alongside an image of the Queen, the government announced on Tuesday. The bill also includes a “tactile feature” to help the vision-impaired, and added security features.

Not that anyone in Australia seems to care—because all everyone seems to be commenting on is that the new note could be the ugliest thing man has ever laid eyes on.

https://twitter.com/Tcorp_/status/719776699919912961

https://twitter.com/wingrove/status/719707773982744576

https://twitter.com/RanTLaw/status/719664662350958593

But, there is hope—some enterprising folks have taken to redesigning the redesigned Australian five dollar note:

If this Australian note goes into circulation, it could join an illustrious list of strange currency notes that have passed through our hands, including the 500,000,000,000 Yugoslavian dinara, the quite inconvenient legal paper-sized 100,000-Filipino peso note, and the hole-in-a-note currency from Zaire.