D B Cooper - still?

[excavating_for_a_mind]

@Northern_Piper

The Fed has to account for Federal Reserve notes turned in, because outstanding notes are a liability on the Fed’s balance sheet.

That means the Fed tracks serial numbers of notes that are turned in, because that helps the Fed bean-counters to track the liability: each note turned in is a potential reduction in the Fed’s liability.

See here for notes being a liability for the Fed:

Federal Reserve Board - Federal Reserve liabilities

So it’s not just a local thing that happened at the time of the hi-jacking in local banks.

I am not an accountant, but I do understand some of this (I think), at least the first paragraph. It is the second paragraph that I don’t get. Wouldn’t just tracking the quantity and denomination of the notes turned in do the same thing? Your link doesn’t mention anything about serial numbers on notes.

Without automated number reading machines, the task would be impossible. Taking the numbers by hand would be fraught with errors. Once you have the errors documented, how do you resolve them? Duplicate numbers would indicate counterfeit bills, which would not reduce the Feds liability since they wouldn’t be able to claim that an actual note had been destroyed.

While I expect some spot checking on bills occurs, and tracking quantities from the various Federal Reserve Banks is done, I would be surprised if the serial number of every bill is recorded (and certainly not in the 1970s). Bills older than usual would probably get closer scrutiny, so if many turned up in the past 30 years or so, I wouldn’t be surprised if they caught them, but if they did, would the FBI or Secret Service make a press release about it?

[ftg]

Getting back to the OP (and similar attempts at naming people).

One oddity to explain: Cooper’s clothing. He was wearing “a black lightweight raincoat, loafers, a dark suit, a neatly pressed white collared shirt, a black clip-on tie, and a mother of pearl tie pin.” There was no indication he had extra clothing or was able to change clothes before jumping.

Lightweight raincoat? Loafers???

And this guy jumped out in the middle of nowhere in November and was going to hike out?

No. This isn’t a smart, well-trained, experienced parachutist or anything. Even the guy the OP’s link talks about isn’t this stupid to wear loafers for something like this.

Anyone who took even a single practice jump would know not to wear loafers.

[DrDeth]

@septimus

Obviously the Fed counts the notes that are traded in ( :smack: ), possibly examines them briefly for counterfeiting, and perhaps enumerates them by the A-L symbol showing which Fed Bank issued them. But serial-number tracking is not directly necessary for these tasks.

I realize that scanning serial numbers is trivial with 21st-century technology, but what about in the 1970’s? If they checked $100-notes manually, did they also check $5’s and $1’s? Does your cite have something to say about that?

Yes, in order to make sure they were properly destroyed, and not stolen or whatever, each bill had it serial number recorded, by hand if necessary. Each and every bill.

[TSBG]

So were there something like ledgers created when the bills were printed, with sequential lists of each serial number, so that they could tick them off when returned?

[Cicero]

It ia still rather off putting that he is known as D.B. Cooper when he was only ever known as Dan Cooper (as alluded to earlier).

I believe there was a member with the name.