The E-Sylum:  Volume 7, Number 47, November 21, 2004, Article 6

QUIZ QUESTION: WHAT TIME IS IT?

  Last week we asked if anyone could tell us the time shown on
  the back of the U.S. $100 bill, as part of a discussion of
  the upcoming film "National Treasure".

  Tom DeLorey writes; "I have no idea what time is shown on
  Independence Hall on the $100 bill, but once during the World
  Series of Numismatics I correctly answered "3 o'clock" as
  the time shown on the reverse of the Bicentennial half.
  Interlocutor Donn Pearlman later told me that he had thrown
  the question in as a gag, intending to say "Just kidding" and
  read the real question, and was shocked when I buzzed in and
  answered the question correctly.

  I just happened to have a blowup picture of the reverse in my
  mind, from an error coin I had illustrated in Collectors
  Clearinghouse years before, and when he asked the question
  the picture just popped into my head as clear as day."

  Joe Boling writes: "The clock on Independence Hall (as
  depicted on the $100 notes) has not changed in the past
  seventy years, but it shows a non-existent time. The hour
  hand points almost squarely at the II (actually often a tiny
  bit before the II), but the minute hand is midway between the
  IV and the V (in other words, at 22.5 minutes). If the hour
  hand were keeping pace, it would be one third of the way
  between the II and the III. On many notes the hands are the
  same length, and thus you could say that the time is 4:10
  if you take the hands to represent opposite functions. But
  on many notes a tiny part of the lower hand extends beyond
  the inner circle of the clock face, making it the longer
  hand, and thus the minute hand. In any event, the original
  engraver did not show a real time, and subsequent engravers
  have retained the error. Now, somebody tell me that the
  hands on the actual building are similarly out of sync."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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