There was a full-page ad in the sports section of today’s USA Today where, if you
responded “sometime in the next 72 hours”, you could acquire sheets of uncut bills
of various denominations for way below face value. What’s the deal with that? If
it is shady if not illegal why is USA Today running the ad?
Interesting…someone selling valid currency for lower than face value? I guess if you sell enough, you eventually make a profit- I’m no businessman though, not sure about how profit margins work.
I have seen QVC or some such on one or two occasions selling uncut sheets, IIRC. ALways at much more than face value though.
How exactly would that work? The Bureau of Engraving and Printing sells uncut sheets, but at a considerable markup.
Reminds me of the old SNL (or SCTV?) skit where the car dealer claims to lose money on every transaction but makes up for it on volume.
Is it the company referred to in this story?
http://kutv.com/seenon/local_story_341175115.html
If so, they’re selling $144 worth of uncut currency for $289.
Is the sheet printed on both sides? That may be the scam.
Here’s a detailed commentary on the ad from a Bay Area trade publication. The story is dated November, 2005.
You will note the company in question offered, “$144 worth of crisp, uncut bills can be purchased for $308.95, including shipping and handling,” they now sell for $289, according to Captain Amazing.
Actually, it’s great fun visiting the World Reserve Monetary Exchange site. They offer “the official Banker’s Book comes loaded with the full uncut sheet of one dollar bills,” for $59.00. A big thick leatherbound book of empty folios, except for one sheet of four one dollar bills. You can buy a four bill sheet, complete with folder, direct from the Bureau of Printing & Engraving for $15.50.
I wonder how they can claim that their other books containing uncut $50 bills are truly uncut when they show four bills uncut and BEP only sells $50 bill uncut as eight to a sheet.
Just sayin and all …
Like all stamp and coin collecting, they suck you into the hobby by presenting loss leaders.
One sheet of bills at a discount looks good, but then they tell you that older ones are collectable for higher prices but will rise in value. Only if the majority of holders cut theirs up to spend, creating a collectors’ scarcity. Like art collection, it’s partly true - some art collectors score big - but mostly false - most art collections lose value.
bibliophage- I kid, I kid- I was thinking of the same sketch you were, or one similar.
I know SNL had a skit called something like “The Change Bank” where all they did was make change. When asked how they actually made money, the answer was simple: “Volume.”
Do they actually say that it’s genuine U.S. currency, or maybe something very similar from a third world country, and this represents their entire GNP.
Well what I saw was advertised as real currency in sheets, being sold for less than HALF (not
double as mentioned upthread) face value.
The weirdest scam I know of along these lines happens occasionally here in Thailand. It’s always Africans perpetuating it, usually Nigerians. But what they do is convince the mark they have a special chemical that will turn strips of ordinary paper into crisp new US dollar bills. Usually $100 bills. I don’t know how the scam works, but they demonstrate it to the mark, appearing actually to manufacture bank notes. It’s all trickery and sleight of hand; these ARE actual notes that they slip in somehow, not make themselves. But the mark ends up paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for this miracle chemical. Hard to believe that people can actually fall for this stuff, but they do.
That is an old scam. I remember hearing about this being a scam around 1850 in the western US. Although a quick googling seems to indicate that I may be remembering an old episode of the Wild Wild West. Which still makes it a somewhat old scam.
I guess the old ways are always the best. 
So here is a related question:
If you ever watch those shows on the discover channel about the mint and the beurau of engraving, they tend to spend some time talking about how they reject currency that contains any imperfections (it is almost always destroyed)
I’m guessing that one potentional imprefection would be bills that have been cropped incorrectly.
Which leads me to my question - if you bought one of those uncut sheets of bills, and then cut the bills out with say, a pinking shear, are the bills still valid currency?
There are some loss leaders out there, where things are sold below cost.
I am not doubting you, but, are you SURE? Because, damn. If you still have the paper, can you check that?
Joe
Yes, still valid currency. You can cut and spend them.
We get people coming in the store all the time, trying to sell us notes that are cut crazily, thinking they are legitimate errors. But a check of the serial numbers will quickly show they were deliberately cut from one of the BEP uncut sheets.
I think that a careful reading of the USA ad will show that the notes aren’t being sold under face.
So there’s a public list somewhere of serial numbers of currency originally sold as uncut sheets?