# Trivia Question about Paper Money **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 23, 2024, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001 "2024-02-23T20:56:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Karen\_Lingel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karen_lingel/32/18649_2.png) [@Karen\_Lingel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Karen_Lingel)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2024, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/21 "2024-02-24T00:31:41Z")
I always get a bunch of red envelopes from my friends for Chinese New Year, and they usually have a $2 bill in each. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2024, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/22 "2024-02-24T00:58:47Z")
Just one I hope! A pair of $2 bills would be bad. ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2024, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/23 "2024-02-24T03:58:53Z")
I have one in my wallet now. However, I got it in change at last month’s coin club meeting, so that doesn’t really count. This is a fun question! Maybe I’ll bring it up at the next meeting. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2024, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/24 "2024-02-24T15:02:09Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > > > which shows John Adams and Benjamin Harrison. > > That’s a different Benjamin Harrison, great-grandfather of the president of the same name. @Johnny_L.A had me wondering whether the artist snuck the 1890’s president into the picture as a sort of joke, or like how Renaissance painters would sometimes include their patrons in their historical or religious paintings. ---
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2024, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/25 "2024-02-24T16:00:47Z")
$2 bills are like unicorns–rarely, if ever, seen in the wild, but may be kept in zoos _if_ they exist. I’m still not fully convinced they exist outside of story books and 1950s black-and-white TV shows. Tripler I suspect my childhood neighbor, Mrs. MacGillicuddy, had a highly sophisticated counterfeiting operation to pay me for mowing her lawn. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2024, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/26 "2024-02-24T16:46:06Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > I haven’t run across a $2 bill other than specifically asking for one at the bank in years. I got one while on vacation back in November. Being Canadian, I’d heard about US $2 bills, but this was literally the first time I’d ever seen one. I’m pretty sure I was given it by accident though, instead of a $1 bill, as change for a purchase, but neither of us realized it at the time. I only noticed it later when counting the money I had stuffed in my pocket. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2024, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/27 "2024-02-24T17:02:05Z")
When I worked at the Science Museum of Minnesota, when someone paid at the ticket counter with a fifty my corny joke was “the museum loves getting grants”. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2024, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/28 "2024-02-24T17:34:54Z")
I have a $2 bill in my wallet right now. It’s been there a long time. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2024, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/29 "2024-02-24T18:03:57Z")
An easier question: which Presidents have NOT appeared on a currently circulating US coin? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2024, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/30 "2024-02-24T18:08:36Z")
> [@Tripler](#): > > I suspect my childhood neighbor, Mrs. MacGillicuddy, had a highly sophisticated counterfeiting operation to pay me for mowing her lawn. You mowed the lawn for Lucy Ricardo’s mother? Very cool! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Ynnad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4491bb/32.png) [@Ynnad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ynnad)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2024, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/31 "2024-02-24T18:24:01Z")
> [@flurb](#): > > An easier question: which Presidents have NOT appeared on a currently circulating US coin? James “Jimmy” E. Carter, George W. Bush, William “Bill” J. Clinton, Barack H. Obama, Donald J. Trump, and Joseph “Joe” R. Biden, ---
**Author:** ![Dogginit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogginit/32/16920_2.png) [@Dogginit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogginit)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2024, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/32 "2024-02-24T19:18:21Z")
[$2 bills may be worth something](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/11/06/some-2-dollar-bills-worth-thousands/71482282007/) I had always heard stories of the US Navy paying in $2 bills, but cannot find a cite to back up that story. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2024, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/33 "2024-02-24T20:19:17Z")
It was (apocryphal) an Army installation. Military bases and surrounding communities sometimes have a bit of an adversarial relationship. So the story goes, after a sharply critical editorial in the local newspaper, the base commander wanted to make a point on how much revenue was really being injected into the economy there. In those days soldiers were paid in cash or check at their option, so he ordered everyone stationed there to report to the paymaster on payday and collect their pay in $2 bills only. Much hilarity ensued, if the story can believed. I’ve heard the story second hand, it apparently occurred in the 1960s or 1970s. It may have happened more than once. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2024, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/34 "2024-02-24T21:22:51Z")
It happened in NJ (or is said to have happened) with a local university that paid in dollar coins (silver). My father kept some of them when he received them. > **[Rutherford Journal; Sale of Houses by College Strains Relations With Town...](https://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/30/nyregion/rutherford-journal-sale-of-houses-by-college-strains-relations-with-town.html)** “LOCAL lore has it that the last time residents of this tree-lined suburb questioned the benefit of having a college campus in town, the president of Fairleigh Dickinson University paid the employees’ salaries in silver dollars. Shortly afterward, many of the coins began to appear in local merchants’ cash registers, a subtle but convincing reminder that the school was indeed a good neighbor.” > **[Peter Sammartino, 87, Is Dead; Was Fairleigh Dickinson Founder (Published 1992)](https://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/30/nyregion/peter-sammartino-87-is-dead-was-fairleigh-dickinson-founder.html)** > To impress local business with the college’s economic importance, he once paid the staff and faculty in silver dollars, ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2024, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/35 "2024-02-24T23:24:11Z")
I’ll say six. Hint #2 sent me in the right direction. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, and Grant each have portraits on one of those denominations. That’s five. John Adams is one of the people shown on the reverse of the $2, bringing the total to 6. ---
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2024, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/36 "2024-02-24T23:57:53Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > I have a $2 bill in my wallet right now. > > It’s been there a long time. Hrm, captured in days of yore, no doubt. > [@wolfpup](#): > > You mowed the lawn for Lucy Ricardo’s mother? Very cool! 😉 I did watch a lot of sitcoms between lawn mowin’ jobs on Summer Break from school. I did more TV watchin’ than mowin’ though. Triper Grass only grows so fast, but _I Love Lucy_ was on Channel 5 every day at 9:AM. ---
**Author:** ![Nyvaak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Nyvaak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nyvaak)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2024, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/37 "2024-02-25T05:26:49Z")
I can personally attest to an instance where people were encouraged to spend money in the form of $2 bills to make a point. However it was not a military installation emphasizing their effect on the local economy; it was a bunch of wise-ass college students from “Mr. Jefferson’s University” descending in great numbers on a football rival. An “away” game was on the schedule, and large quantities of $2 bills were secured so that the students traveling to the hometown of said rival could spend those bills and rub the community’s nose in . . . well, OK, I don’t know precisely _what_ they were rubbing people’s noses in. Maybe the fact that “our founder’s face is on money,” or some such. But the point was definitely to introduce a lot of $2 bills into the local economy ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2024, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/38 "2024-02-25T05:42:47Z")
The fact that any use of a $2 bill is so noteworthy that people can state when and where they were used, kind of supports my contention than they’re not “in common use today”. But I accept that’s probably not what the OP had in mind. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2024, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/39 "2024-02-25T06:26:43Z")
You Can Make a Difference! Go to your bank and request $50 or $100 worth. The teller will be happy to oblige. They are fun (usually) because a lot of people have never seen one. Leave them for tips. Great fun at the checkout. “What us this!? Is this real!?” ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2024, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001/40 "2024-02-25T06:46:24Z")
I mean, I have encountered them “in the wild”, very, very occasionally. Could not tell you exactly how often; seems kind of rare (and the fact that there are so damned many $1 notes circulating for some reason cannot help: are you really going to make a trip to the bank to get some $2’s when a couple of 1’s will serve except you can’t even buy a cup of coffee for that kind of money anyway? You’ll probably want at least $50’s for walking-around money.). But I do not handle that much cash. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-question-about-paper-money/998001.md?page=3)