A friend of mine has 2 bills in a safe deposit box that she has been holding onto for several years.
She acquired these bills while working as a bank teller in the mid-sixties.
The reason she kept these bills was that both have identical serial numbers.
My first reaction was that they must certainly be counterfeit.
She seems quite certain that they are genuine, and was well-trained at the time to spot fakes.
Also, the fact that these bills are singles pretty much rules out the possibility of them being couterfeit, even though this was 40 years ago. Couterfeiting a one dollar bill, and doing such a great job of it that a teller misses it would seem like a waste of time and talent for the couterfeiter for such a poor return.
My questions: Could these two bills be genuine? Would it have been possible for this type of error to occur with the technology available in the 1960’s? Assuming that they are real, would this be something a collector would value and pay a decent price for?
Unless your friend has an amazing photographic memory for the serial numbers on random bills, I assume that she got the bills at the same time, which to me indicates counterfeit.
Have your friend look at the series (year) on each bill. The Federal Reserve states that “no two bill of the same denomination and series will have the same serial number”. It is possible for same denomination bills of different series (ex. 1999 and 2001) to have the same serial number. See the website “Where’s George” for examples.
If the bills are of the same series, I can’t imagine how a duplicate serial number error could have occured during printing.
The Secret Service, in addition to protecting our President from the hazards posed by gays, Al-Qa’eda, and pretzels, is also responsible for ensuring U.S. Currency retains its value by taking counterfeit money out of circulation and prosecuting counterfeiters. I imagine they’ve got a case officer who’d be intrigued at your friend’s find.
a star at the end of a serial number indicates it is a reissue of a previously used number, such as one that was mutilated and removed from circulation. There is not supposed to be bills with the same serial numbers out there.