If you are American, take some paper money out of your wallet and look at it. Down near the bottom, near the portrait, read the series date. What is it? If you’re like me, it says Series 2013, as it has done since…well, since 2013.
Why is this? The series numbers used to change over every few years, especially for ones, but now that isn’t happening. I do realize that a single series date can be used for several years of printings, but I’ve never seen a series date last this long.
Prior to the introduction of enhanced anti-counterfeiting features beginning in the late 1990s, the currency designs had been exactly the same for decades. Yet every few years the series dates would change.
And the $1 bill is still the same as it has been for nearly sixty years.
I don’t know if this comes into play but from the Wiki link
(bolding mine)
“Originally series 2009 $100 notes were scheduled to be released in February 2011, but were delayed due to printing problems. However, due to intense demand for $100 bills from banks, Series 2006A (with the same Cabral-Paulson signatures as series 2006 notes) was printed, using the 1996-era design instead of the new 2004-era design. The new $100 note was finally released in October 2013 as series 2009A, not series 2009 as the defective notes were dated. The 2009 series was sorted, and notes found acceptable were eventually released.”
I wonder if there was a lag between when the Series 2017 notes should have been printed and released and when they actually were ------- due to supply/demand or other things?
Entering most of my currency on the Where’s George site I look at series numbers all the time. They’re changed for something as minor as the signatures on the bottom changing and indicate not when the bill was placed into circulation, nor printed even, but simply when the plate was engraved. Dollar bills last an average of eighteen months so they tend to have the 2013 series date a lot with a few 2017s showing from time to time. Higher denominations last a lot longer so earlier series abound but right now 2013 is the most common even with them.
If you want to get an idea of when a bill was produced, check the block letter on the right end. That increments each time the eight digits are run through so it starts with, say, L00000000A, gets to L99999999A, then starts anew with L00000000B and so on. How high the block letter gets depends on how long the series lasts and how many bills are printed for that particular Federal Reserve Bank. New York, for example, will reach deeper than Minneapolis.
Yep, got myself a couple of 20-notes and a handful of singles from Series 2017, signed by Mnuchin and Carranza, and a whole bunch more Series 2009 or 2013 of different denoms.
My bad eyes dislike staring at minute digits but I checked the wad of paper in my passport-size wallet anyway, perched atop the toilet with no better way to occupy my time there. (Elsewhere, I waste time otherwise.) Ones, fives, tens, and half the twenties are 2013, with the other twenties being 2009. Yes, I live in the past.
Two dollar bills are being printed but I doubt the series is 1976. The WG site I linked to above has, when you open an account, a table showing each series for each denomination and after 1976, the $2 are showing series 1995, 2003, 2003A, 2009, 2013, and 2017A. If you’re seeing a fresh, new 1976 series bill it might have been in someone’s collection and put in circulation for some reason, or sitting in an FRB vault for a long, long time.
The table has a gray cell if no bills of that denomination were engraved with that series, an orange cell if there are bills available but you have entered none, a yellow cell with n/0 for those you’ve entered at least one bill but none of them have a hit (subsequent entry by someone else) yet, and finally a white cell with n/n if that series has entries and at least one hit. I have, for example, at the 2017 series a white cell 12/1 for $1, a yellow cell with 1/0 for $10, and an orange cell for $20. The rest are gray as no 2s, 5s, 50s or 100s were produced with that series.
Found out if you take a trip to Mt. Kilamanjoro they take US dollars only if the bills are series 2009 or later. Guy who told me that did not know the reason , maybe they are afraid of counterfeit bills.