18 ms·
Uncut Currency
- percentcer 2y agoWhy do these sell for so much more than the value of the note?
- buryat 2y agoYou cannot join multiple bank notes into a single sheet of paper, that's why it's valued more than separate bank notes.
- Aloha 2y agoI mean thats how're they're printed as large sheets - these are just uncut.
- buryat 2y agoyes, but the only place where to buy the sheets of $2 bills is at the US Mint so they can set any price. It's another form of Seignorage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seigniorage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seigniorage, where the government gets to keep the difference between the cost of producing these coins and/or notes and keeps the difference as this money is unlikely to be back in circulation. Same thing happened with the 50 states collectible 25c, it's estimated that the US got $6B because people remove them from circulation.
- eru 2y agoBtw, I wonder what strategy would lead to maximisation of Seignorage (in inflation adjusted terms). Ignoring collectors items for a moment, I suspect keeping inflation low will lead to higher absolute monetary balance held by the public, more than making up for not raking in much in 'inflation tax'. See eg how the Bank of Japan could pump out lots and lots of money to be held by the general public, when their inflation rates were low or negative.
- buryat 2y agoI doubt that we have a huge paper notes mass being hoarded in the US, most of it should be circulating pretty constantly. I see it important for exports as the US gets to produce paper that we send over to other countries in exchange for goods. They store it and we never pay back as long as our economy, technological progress, science, higher education, cutting-edge healthcare, entertainment, army stay ahead of others then we never ever going to pay back. And Nixon shock where the US dollar stopped being pegged to gold showed that power to others since no one in the world would stop using the US dollar just because it's value now is measured how the US can dictate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock). Most Americans shouldn't keep their money in savings and should invest into the stock market because it's a reflection of our collective economical input. And if you just keep it in Savings then it'll keep up with the interest rate which doesn't change the stored value, so what's the point? While in big indices there always going to be winners because that's just the nature of the game, so by betting on winners you are going to outrun the interest rate by capturing this additional value that is being created. And people working for these winning companies and startups are very interested in beating the interest rate, they're mostly shareholder aligned as they themselves are equity holders. If you don't have equity you're working in, it still makes sense to bet on winning companies since those people are vey much equity aligned and just want to capture the market share. Pension funds, 401k are all tight to various investments, indices, etc. that are all reflection of the total economy. And I see it as my participation in the broader economy as I spend money that creates jobs and creates new economic exchanges further, and as a shareholder I capture that value back anyway. People should keep their spending at their social level if they want to keep the economy going smoothly.
- eru 2y ago> I doubt that we have a huge paper notes mass being hoarded in the US, most of it should be circulating pretty constantly. I suspect most of the seigniorage these days ain't in the paper notes, but in database entries. Ie reserves that banks hold at the central bank. (Though Interest on Excess Reserves makes this topic more complicated than it used to be in the past.) The rest of your comment seems to be about what is logical for an individual or perhaps for society. And that's useful, but not at all where I wanted to go with my comment. I was purely speculating on how to get the maximum seigniorage for the central bank. > Pension funds, 401k are all tight to various investments, indices, etc. that are all reflection of the total economy. And I see it as my participation in the broader economy as I spend money that creates jobs and creates new economic exchanges further, and as a shareholder I capture that value back anyway. People should keep their spending at their social level if they want to keep the economy going smoothly. People keeping their money as cash under the mattress implicitly also lend it out to the economy. An inflation targeting central bank will notice that (statistically) less spending is going on when the money is under the mattress, and print more money to compensate. When you start spending the mattress money, the central bank will remove money from circulation to compensate. The net effect on the economy is pretty much the same as if you had stuck it directly into a bank account. (The main practical difference is in who's doing the asset allocation. But the amount of total spending is about the same: it's whatever the central banks decides it should be. No need for you to help smooth it out.) You are right that with an inflationary currency, keeping money under the mattress is a losing proposition for the individual. But with eg a deflating currency, cash might be a decent investment. (And you can get into these kinds of regimes without crashing the economy, by eg central bank that targets a constant nominal GDP, or with the historic gold standard.) That's why I was bringing up the example of Japan: when they had deflation, people were keeping lots of cash around. Just for clarity: I wasn't even thinking so much about money under the mattress, but mostly about 'cash in your wallet'.
- Aloha 2y agoBecause its a novelty gift item.
- golem14 2y agoYou can sign up to be on the waiting list for a lucky Panda $2 note, with a nice red envelope and a serial number starting with '888'. I mean, it's a nice gesture, and maybe annoying the heck out of certain Presidents. The price for this $2 note + red envelope is >$10.
- arresin 2y ago$10 is taking advantage.
- ndileas 2y agoYes, and? Fools and their money, etc. No one is forcing people to pay these rates. If someone wants to buy one that's their business.
- kube-system 2y agoBlowing $10 on entertainment hardly makes anyone a fool, though. It's $10 worth of novelty for $10.
- ndileas 2y agoI totally agree, but the person to whom I was replying probably does not.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- xbmcuser 2y agoIf I recall correctly this is because someone found an infinite money glitch and used a credit card that had a big cash back. So he would buy the bills then deposit into his bank account and pay of his credit cards. So now they increased the price to more than the face value.
- _alex_ 2y agoThat was with the dollar coins
- Scoundreller 2y agoI miss Fatwallet
- sureIy 2y agoBut that's just stupidity of the seller. You must account for credit card fees when you sell anything. Here the issue is that they're several times more expensive than their printed value, hardly the same issue.
- sureIy 2y agoCollectors. Basically the mint found a way to make more money than they print.
- HarHarVeryFunny 2y agoBecause that's what people are willing to pay for them.
- BobAliceInATree 2y ago1) They're novelty collector's items. 2) Selling individual sheets has a lot more overhead per sheet/bill than selling fresh stacks of bills to banks.
- ziofill 2y agoWould it be legal to use a sheet like that as currency?
- kxrm 2y agoYes. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/steve-wozniak-2-dollar-bill/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/steve-wozniak-2-dollar-bil...
- 752963e64 2y ago[dead]
- buryat 2y agoIt's not considered legal tender since it's not a note, it doesn't have to be accepted. The cut out notes don't have to be accepted either as it's difficult to determine the authenticity of the sheet itself.
- em500 2y agoSellers are largely free to choose what form of payment to accept or refuse, regardless of "legal tender" laws. The concept is much more narrow than commonly assumed: https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm
- buryat 2y agoYes, I wasn't sure about the exact legal code around it, hence I said "it doesn't have to be accepted" and provided a potential explanation that the counterparty can present. In the cited Section 31 U.S.C. 5103 it says: > Federal Reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal Reserve Banks and national banks What would be the legal definition of a note sheet? Is it a note or not? A collection of bank notes? The bank notes have pretty specific definitions down to the specific measurements up to a certain precision. Would a music note sheet fall under this definition as well? I don't see what the US mint sells as a legal tender given the strict definition of bank notes themselves.
- 2y ago
- WarOnPrivacy 2y agoI've been looking to decorate with stock certificates but bill sheets are cool too. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=50+stock+certificates https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=50+stock+certificates
- senkora 2y agoThey’d make awesome wallpaer.
- Scoundreller 2y agoGrab that 1960 American Express share certificate! Up until 1965, it was an unlimited liability corporation.
- neilv 2y agoSteve Wozniak (the Apple cofounder) famously bought sheets of $2 bills, and had a printer perforate and gum them into pads. So he could literally tear off $2 bills, in front of people who might not even know it was real currency, to pay them. https://web.archive.org/web/20180311084811/http://archive.woz.org/letters/general/78.html https://web.archive.org/web/20180311084811/http://archive.wo...
- skunkworker 2y agoSome banks also do this. I’ve gotten a wad of $2 bills from a local branch of a major bank before.
- achow 2y agoThe video where he is showcasing it.. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDHTkowSkUM/ https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDHTkowSkUM/
- firen777 2y agoreading the comments gave me a headache...
- eru 2y agoIt's instagram. Slight tangent: the YouTube comments used to be famous for being a vile cesspit. Then Google changed something, and now they are full of positivity. Often too full.
- normie3000 2y agoAnd for songs, often (fake?) testimonies to people's emotional attachments to the song.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoIt's not just me / the music videos I look up then, is it? I can't help but wonder if it's some kind of YT hive mind, bots, or Google's own algorithms pushing those comments to the top.
- petesergeant 2y agogotta be someone somewhere with more money than sense using these as wallpaper
- omoikane 2y agoMaybe not a wallpaper, but I have been at an office that has a sheet that was framed and hung on the wall. You know, where people might have hung a painting or something else, this guy has a framed sheet of dollar bills. It felt like a novelty at the time, but that feeling wore off quickly.
- hidroto 2y agohttps://rarehistoricalphotos.com/banknotes-german-hyperinflation-1923/ https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/banknotes-german-hyperinfla...
- WorldMaker 2y agoI love the story that a French building recently (2010s, I think) renovated and discovered back rooms wallpapered in very early American money and plenty more stuffed inside various walls as essentially insulation. There was no surprise as to why that might be because most of the bills had the obvious signature of Benjamin Franklin and there was one notorious French bordello in his diplomat days that he had been alleged to spend a lot of self-invented money at. It was mostly only good for wallpaper and insulation, but being a diplomat he certainly implied it was good American currency at the time. There's something to weirdly admire about Ben Franklin paying for apparently a lot of French services with money he just kind of made up himself, and they mostly accepted it because it did make interesting wallpaper and decent building insulation.
- jcrash 2y agoI would love a source for this if you could find one. I tried searching and will search more in depth later. Any more keywords or information you remember about the story?
- defaultcompany 2y agoThis reminded me of that classic Eric and Tim Show episode "Prices" [1]. "Fine European prices! Buy $35.50... for forty dollars." 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ9yBgTp9UQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ9yBgTp9UQ
- nxobject 2y agoI only wish they sold something practical like non-commemorative quarter rolls, even at a slight upcharge... banks are cracking down on who they allow to redeem cash for equivalently-valued quarter rolls.
- nofunsir 2y agoWhy?
- neilv 2y agoIt costs them money. Also, for years there was a problem with people who'd sift through quarters for rare 1964-and-earlier ones that had silver content, and then return most of the quarters to a bank. And some people would do this in high volume, using coin-sorting machinery, and traveling around the region, to hit many banks. So, a bank branch would lose money on providing the coins and/or lose even more on taking back all the non-silver ones. After my condo building's laundry room vendor recently swapped out the card readers for some dodgy IoT app thing, I've started using quarters again, and finding quarters at all is difficult. Most store customer service counters and checkouts have a rule against trading quarters at all, though one did offer to trade up to $2 worth (like for parking meter). All the laundromats that still use quarters have threatening signs on their quarters changers, that it's only for customers. My bank branch limits to 4 rolls per customer (after verifying that you have an account there), and you can often sense that the counter person enjoys the transaction even less than some of the other money-losing services they provide.
- WalterBright 2y agoIt's been a very very long time since I've seen a silver quarter in circulation.
- neilv 2y agoThere were enough to make searching worthwhile. Then people switched to half-dollars. I assume the supply is cleaned out now, though. I did get a silver quarter in circulation maybe a decade ago, in change at a pop-up farmer's market stand. I recognized it immediately: it's a whiter, more satiny look.
- sschueller 2y agoWhy is the US one of the few countries that can't keep a consistent design across their bills and still does not have a way for blind people to identify which note they have. They are all the same size and have no embossed markings.
- ternnoburn 2y ago[flagged]
- saturn8601 2y agoBut the US has some of the best disability friendly infrastructure. The whole ADA compliance is taken very seriously here.
- ternnoburn 2y agoI work in accessibility. The ADA is barely acknowledged. Every automatic door, curb cut, and accommodation is still a tough fight.
- kube-system 2y agoADA compliance is always a struggle in the US, but if you travel around the world, the US is leaps and bounds ahead of many places that don't even have the equivalent of the ADA to fight for.
- ternnoburn 2y agoDoes "other people do it worse" mean we do it well? Because I only put forward the claim that the US does it poorly. Whether others do it worse seems to have no bearing on whether we should strive to improve or not...
- kube-system 2y agoOf course, disability rights and accessibility is a struggle for people all around the planet.
- jjwatt 2y agoIs there anyway to order new bills like this but cut? It doesn’t seem like banks are offering anything uncirculated nowadays.
- HarHarVeryFunny 2y agoBanks certainly receive packs of new notes (from the Fed) all the time, so try asking nicely, or ask them to order it if its something like $2 bills that they don't normally have. I've read comments on collector forums of others getting new notes from the bank like this.
- a12k 2y agoWhen I get cash from the bank teller, as rare as that is nowadays, it is regularly brand new and uncirculated. I bet you could just withdraw cash and ask for uncirculated and they would oblige. They’re hard to count because they stick together.
- rkagerer 2y agoTIL there are $100,000 bills and they are illegal to possess https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_one-hundred-thousand-dollar_bill https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_one-hundred-th...
- cmckn 2y agoSimilarly, the Bank of England uses £100,000,000 notes internally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_England_%C2%A3100,000,000_note https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_England_%C2%A3100,000,...
- Eavolution 2y agoSomewhat vaguely related to this, not all bank notes in the UK are made equal. Good luck getting someone in England to accept an Ulster Bank, Danske bank, or Bank of Ireland note, despite them all being pound sterling notes issued in the UK worth the exact same amount.
- shawabawa3 2y agoThat's not really them not being made equal, that's just people being ignorant of them you have the same problem spending $2 bills in the US
- gsck 2y agoUlster Bank notes are some of the few notes in the world that are portrait in orientation, probably doesnt help with the acceptance of them elsewhere in the UK
- bitdivision 2y agoDanske bank? Isn't that Danish? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterling#Everyday_use_and_acceptance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterlin... Looks as though it's just Ulster, Scotland and the Crown Dependencies nowadays Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danske_Bank_(Northern_Ireland) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danske_Bank_(Northern_Ireland) Danske bank is a Northern Irish bank (I had never heard of this)
- kleiba 2y agoGift-wrapping an otherwise empty box with one of these could make for a fun gift.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoLooks like they make a nice vig on it. Maybe 100% profit.
- indiantinker 2y agoOh! Nice wallpaper.
- anonu 2y ago50 $1s for $86 - thats highway robbery
- lupire 2y agoWait till you find out what paintings cost and what paint coats.
- rybosworld 2y agoThere was a time when the mint would sell coins and bills at face value. The problem is, people started using that for manufactured spending to rack up credit card points. They added a premium to prevent this.
- valarauko 2y agoThat seems reasonable, but why would the US Mint care about manufactured spend for credit card companies?
- scintill76 2y agoI believe in some cases there was no premium at all, not even shipping, so widespread manufactured spending was losing the Mint much more money than they were prepared for when they started the program.
- valarauko 2y agoI don't follow. Why would Manufactured Spend specifically cost the Mint money? It's not great for the credit card company, sure, but why the Mint? If the Mint was previously eating the interchange fees & shipping, ok, but that's not a manufactured spend specific issue.
- scintill76 2y agoI agree it's not specific to MS. But MS was probably inducing much more demand and thereby making them eat more fees than they planned to. (I don't have any inside information though.) Adding a premium would make it a little less attractive to MSers.
- jagged-chisel 2y agoHeck of a markup on these things. $2, eight-note sheet, that's $16 before shipping and whatever else. Add $20 ... because they're in demand? idk...
- kubb 2y agoPrinting money costs money too.
- lolinder 2y agoBut these notes stop the printing process early—the purchaser is on the hook to cut them out. So these should cost less than the fully printed and cut bills if we're going by pure cost of creation. Do banks pay upwards of $1.50 on the dollar for new bills?
- HarHarVeryFunny 2y agoNo, but the US mint pays 3c to make each 1c coin, so there's that!
- shawabawa3 2y agothey only sell them as a novelty, and as a novelty they can charge a premium
- lolinder 2y agoRight, I think that's the actual answer.
- pridkett 2y agoThey’re not really sold as currency - they’re sold as souvenirs. If you visit the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in DC, they’re for sale at the gift shop. I’ve got a set of 32 $2 bills hanging on my wall right next to my set of hyperinflation Zimbabwean currency. If you just want $2 bills, go to your bank. At my bank I need to order them $200 at a time. When I was flying every week they were great as the bartenders at the airport lounges would remember me as the “the Thursday $2 guy”.
- jongjong 2y agoThey should also make them in a small roll format...
- nlh 2y ago(Professional coin & currency nerd here) Fun fact about these — when the treasury first issued these, many people decided to cut them into odd off-center pieces and sell the resulting notes as miscut errors. Once that started happening, the treasury (BEP to be specific) very quickly changed the serial numbers so they’re all very recognizable as having come from an uncut sheet. I didn’t check the latest for all denominations, but I know for $1 bills they all start with 99. So if you see a “miscut dollar error” for sale on eBay or the like, always check the serial. If it starts with 99 then it’s just someone who had some fun with a pair of scissors and it’s not a real error. For example, to wit: https://www.ebay.com/itm/135364285098 https://www.ebay.com/itm/135364285098
- readthenotes1 2y agoMaybe that's a way to recoup paying $86 for $50?
- rufugee 2y agoI'm shocked someone would pay $500 for an erroneously cut $1 bill.
- bdcravens 2y agoPeople will pay extra for currency that has zero errors, and only an interesting serial number.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- nxobject 2y agoTo wit: the Mint will also sell you in line with Chinese numerology collectible bills with “777”s or “888”s in their SNs with a decorative envelope. Bless the marketing exec who’s finding nontraditional markets for collectible currency.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
- gwbas1c 2y agoSeems like the sheet of 50 $1 bills would look pretty framed.
- joering2 2y agoInteresting to see US Mint site on the HN. Few interesting facts from someone who is collecting US currency for 20 years: - these are great gift items for your rich friends or businessmen. The $1 sheet does come with only slight overcharge and everyone I gifted ended up hanging it in their office wall. Its a great conversation starter because majority of people do not know US dollars are produced in sheets nor that civilians can easily and legally purchase them off the US mint site. - on the downside I almost missed my international flight because TSA agent could not comprehend that this is not fake home-printed sheet of $100. The new $100s have the famous security strip engraved and I would imagine putting large number thru airport security machine will tip it as attempt to smuggle large amount of US currency (you supposed to report anything over $10,000 in cash (whichever currency) when you enter or leave US border). So the TSA got warning on their screen and his eyes almost popped out when he unroll a sheet of 16 x $100 bills on one sheet of paper. Other travelers had fun seeing it too. Its only that his supervisor let me through quickly because he said a month ago there was some money summit in NYC and he got plenty of people going back and forth with these sheets. - I think everyone should order a single $1 sheet to have on their wall as it is a great conversation starter.
- danielodievich 2y agoI tip exclusively with $2 bills because bartenders/event staff/doormen/shuttle people then always remember me. I get them from the bank and they are invariably crisp and never been folded. They kind of stick together because of this, too.
- ellisd 2y agoSame! Nothing speaks louder than having a wallet that's barely able to fold because it's full of $2 bills, and being 'that person' who pays exclusively with them. It immediately gives you a unique flair. Also, I've noticed that requesting $2 bills is an interesting test of your bank's ability to perform its job as a member bank of the Federal Reserve. I've had so many tellers tell me that $2 bills no longer exist, only to have their managers offer to call me when they arrive in about a week's time.
- cheeze 2y agoIf you do this in Portland or Seattle, people just assume you were at a... gentlemens club that uses $2 bills for tips
- danielodievich 2y agointeresting. I do this in Seattle all the time. Nothing like this seems to be assumed. I must tip in places that either hide their reaction well or do not assume that ;-\
- virtualwhys 2y agoLooking at the images and the price of eggs I can't help but think... expensive toilet paper
- lacoolj 2y agoAre you allowed to use bills for purchase that you cut yourself (like, from one of these sheets)?
- yellowapple 2y agoI'll have to keep these in mind for wrapping presents next Christmas.
- kridsdale1 2y agoI was thinking of taking a large roll to the tailor…
- dtgriscom 2y agoSame. And then the recipient, *by law*, must not damage the paper while unwrapping.
- arwhatever 2y agoUncle was proud owner of his own printing business. When I visited he wanted to give my branch of the family a tour of his facility with some new $1M+ printing machine. After showing us around, he drew in close and told us that he had been quietly doing some work for the U.S. Mint and to please keep it a bit quiet. He removes a padlock from a cabinet and pulls out a maybe 2 inch thick stack of uncut $5 bills, 2 bills wide and maybe 6 bills tall, all shrink wrapped. As anyone else would, I start trying to do the math in my head, wanting to crack a joke about fitting the printing machine back up for a “special run,” and so on. After a moment my uncle admits that it’s all a gag, only the top sheet is actual money, specially ordered uncut, with the rest of the stack underneath just being regular blank paper. In hindsight the locker was a super flimsy sheet metal cabinet.
- geephroh 2y agoMy uncle gave me an uncut sheet of dollar bills as an xmas present when I was maybe 9 or 10. Many years later, I still remember that feeling of astonishment -- ranks among one the great Christmas gifts of my childhood.