Tonight, at the ATM, I got a crisp, brand new $10 bill. It smelled new, had no creases whatsoever, and was as smooth and as flat as any American bill I’ve ever seen seen.
So, what’s my question? The bill was from series 1995, and had the old style design. This definitely was not a new bill, but it sure looked like one.
Where has it been for the last five years?
It might have just been sitting around the Federal Reserve for a while. Sometimes they make too much money and the demand doesn’t meet the supply. Consequently, old bills sitting around the warehouse.
Yeah, a friend of mine recently got a relatively new $2 bill as change. Can you believe it? I myself have four in a collection somewhere; they’re 10 years old, and in terrible condition.
Dates on paper money are completely different in meaning compared to those on coins. The series date represents the last time the dollar bill’s design was changed, for example, when we get a new Secretary of the Treasury or Treasurer of the United States. Recent series have been 1988, 1990, 1993, 1995, 1996, and the most recent, 1999. Just because they have this date on them does not mean they were printed in that year, a perfect example being the 1934D series, which was really printed in the mid 1950s. The new $10 bill started printing in late 1999, meaning that the last series 1995 $10 were also printed in late 1999. Although your crisp $10 could have been sitting around for 5 years, chances are it was printed less than a year ago.
As for the two dollar bill, the Federal Reserve recently printed them in the 1995 series, the first since the 1976 series edition for the bicentennial. Your friend probably picked up one of the '95 bills, while yours is most likely a '76.
As another little quirk about paper money…notice how about 90% of the bills out there today are series 1995 or 1996. The average life of the dollar bill being 18 months, I was proud to find a 1963B series in circulation last week.
Source type place: http://www.drbanks.com/currency/type.html
Well, time to go back to lurking…
That answers my question. Thank you very much, Space Dog!
That’s nothing, I found a wheat cent (pre-1959) the other day.
In your face, Space Coyote!
You think that’s something? Last year I got a 1964 (silver!) dime in change. Woo-hoo!
Aestivalis said:
Which leads me to the question: what is this uniquely American suspicion of the $2 bill? If you find one at all, it often has the corner torn off “to let out the bad luck”. Canada used the $2 bill for decades without any such stigma attached to it, up until the time it was replaced with the current $2 coin (and try tearing a part of THAT off sometime!)
Where did this tradition of “unlucky” $2 bills originate?
I’ve heard that the business of tearing corners off $2 notes comes from the world of the race track. Apparently, $2 is the standard bet, and tearing the corner off a $2 note is either good or bad luck or something.
Not that this has been at all enlightening or anything.