My father passed away recently, and we found something very interesting when going through his dresser drawers. He had an envelope full of unused $2 bills, which in itself is not unusual. These were brought back into circulation in 1976 (see here). Also in the envelope were about 10 bills which had U.S. stamps affixed to them, along with a postmark from the main Baltimore post office dated July 4th, 1976 - the bicentennial. (I do have a hazy memory of going downtown with him that day to get these bills.)
How do I figure out what they are worth, assuming it’s more than $2?
2 dollar bills are not that uncommon. You can routinely get them at banks. If they are worth anything over face value the difference would be minuscule.
The ones with stamps were prepared by collectors who put stamps on them and then had them canceled at the post office on the day the $2 bill was issued. As a souvenir.
A quick check of eBay shows similarly stamped and canceled bills selling for $6 to $12 each.
No, everyone got them stamped in April 1976 when the bills were reissued. July 4th, 1976 was a Sunday, no post offices would have been open to “stamp” anything.
It was about that time I noticed that samclem wasn’t a numismatist, but a giant crustacean from the Paleolithic Era!
God dammit, moderator, I ain’t giving you no tree-fiddy!
(Probably just blow it all on proof sets and slightly irregular stamps. “Oops, Grant’s hat’s on backwards. Oops, Queen Victoria’s eyes look crossed. Oops, Abe Lincoln looks like a corpse… oh, wait, that’s actually not irregular at all.”)
Anyway. The lesson here is, most of the things people collect in the hopes they’ll become valuable never actually will. Witness, say, every dollar coin introduced in the past half-century or so: Straight from the mint to the sock drawer, thereby ensuring they’ll never be worth more than about a dollar.
I’ve mentioned this before but, since OP’s Q has been A’ed, will mention a useful trivia factoid again.
Cambodia uses American dollar. When I was in Sihanoukville, I gave $2-bills as tips until I ran out. Having run out, I tried to buy them back for $3 but was refused: they had value as souvenirs! Hence, I conclude they’re worth at least $3 … in Cambodian tourist resorts.
ETA: Thomas Jefferson is world famous. Could his portrait be part of the excess value?
SamClem says they are worth 3.50 retail - to me that’s a substantial increase over face value. Nobody else here like to repalce every $2 they have with $3?
I wonder now though that the post office did this - isn’t it defacing currency and isn’t that prohibited?
I think defacing currency is only prohibited if it’s for the purpose of fraud. In other words, for example, if you drew some extra zeros on the bill in order to pass them as twenties.
I would say that putting postage stamps on a bill would certainly make it unfit for reissue. The Secret Service routinely suppresses various schemes to deface currency. For instance, a local strip club here in the Portland area was marking the edges of $2 bill with red ink. The SS put pressure on them to stop it: WilliWeek article about it. They also got Where’sGeorge to stop selling rubber stamps meant to be used to mark dollar bills.
“SamClem, I think, meant $2 bills that were canceled with stamps on the day the bill was issued.”
That’s what we’re all talking about isn’t it? Including those who responded like: “Somewhere between face value and two bucks. The thing is, everyone went and got $2 bills that day and got them stamped” and the one directly quoting samclem and saying “most of the things people collect in the hopes they’ll become valuable never actually will.”
My point was these stamped bills have nearly doubled in value (and according to another post, more than tripled)
