In THIS
thread FOLLY claimed to carry a $2 bill around in their wallet. This sparked my memory. I recall as a kid older people carrying $2 bills around, usually hidden in their wallets, not where the other money was. Both my Ma & Pop did, my grandparents did, and I know the mother of my [childhood] best friend did. Was there any reason to this? A superstition maybe?
There is a superstition about empty wallets. My mother, for example, when she gives a wallet as a gift always puts at least $1 in it because she’s semi-superstitious (though more traditional than superstitious).
I’d guess it’s a blend of the superstition and the novelty of $2 bills.
Now if it’s a $3 bill, you’re probably in MidTown Atlanta and it’s a form of advertising.
I was told it was so I would never be broke. But then again, that would work with any denomination.
I have carried around a 2 dollar bill on occasion. This was mostly due to the fact that I save them when a cashier gives me one, and I forget to take it out of the wallet. Sometimes I would use it for emergency use. Like if I was feeling particularly parched and there wasn’t an ATM nearby.
No superstition that I am aware of, but that doesn’t mean anything.
Hey, this is a little off the track of your question, but I do know that when I worked at O’Hare as a passenger screener, many vacationers that were headed someplace tropical took many $2 bills with them to hand out as tips, because they heard the locals thought it was good luck, as well as an appropriate tip for most things.
TBone82
I thought that was Kansas. Where they did in fact issue a state monetary unit in that amount, with William Burroughs on it (and traditional saying applying).
$2 bills were always popular at the horse races, a basic bet was $2. Horses = horseshoes = luck?
I try to avoid having a empty wallet, but sometimes its beyond my control.
Except that my (religious) parents thought that a $2 bill was “bad luck.”
And I think that a large segment of the general populace in the 1920’s-1950’s thought that way.
Yes, $2 bills were handy at the race track. But my parents didn’t believe in gambling. So, anything associated with gamblers was bad.
As a point of interest, many of the $2 bills we buy in our coin shop have at least one corner torn off. I saw my parents do this in the 1950’s. It was to break the spell of bad luck.
I would say that out of every 1000 $2 bills we buy, perhaps 100 or more have at least one corner torn off. This does NOT apply to modern $2 notes, those from 1976 and later. I don’t think the tradition continued into the latter half of the 20th century.
Up until – maybe 10 years ago – we all carried $2 bills in our wallets. And then the “twonie” was introduced.
Harried and inattentive waitresses and cashiers might mistake it for a twenty.
Oh, I forgot to mention. Other countries have Internet access.
When I was working in Alaska (lo, these many years ago–during the pipeline thang) I was told that $2 was once the price of a cheap “date”*and so giving a $2 bill to a woman, even as change, was an insult. Re: the OP, make of that what you will.
- A hooker, ya bozos.
I carried a two dollar bill in my wallet until recently. It was made in 1995 and fell apart about two months ago. I never heard any superstition about them. It just seemed instinctual to carry it in why wallet. Spending it would both make me lose and oddity and possibly make me explain to some clerk that it was real. It think that is the problem.
They have printed a lot of new $2 bills as recently as 2004. Where do those things get sent too for circulation? I got mine at Thomas Jefferson’s house, Monticello, and that makes sense but I have no idea who else wants a big batch of them.
Where can you get one? I read somewhere that they were “real” money; that is, redeemedable, unlike the “worthless” paper we have now. Legend?
I can’t comment on the '50s, but these days if someone pays me in $2 bills, I can be pretty damned sure they were recently in a strip club. Any change you’re given for a purchase of a drink or whatever is in $2 bills rather than singles. I’m told that this is to force the customers to give the girls more money, or at least give it to them more quickly.
What does a $2 bill go for these days?
False. They’re federal reserve notes, just like other bills.
At one time having two dollars in your pocket meant something.
They usually go for $29.95 a piece but I can get you them at 2 for $19.99. Act now. Quantities are limited (by the number of $2 bills that I can get at 10 for $20 from any bank).