Funny money?

[Scott5114]

What is Series 1995, chopped liver?

$1s and $2s remain stylish.  it is the higher denominations which, starting in 1995, went to the wacky designs that I've never quite gotten used to.

1995 was the last old-style series. The new designs were Series 1996. Rubin takes office in 1995, forces series change, then the following year they redesigned the $100s, $50s, and $20s. $5s and $10s weren't redesigned until Series 1999 with Summers, I believe.

[NE2]

I use my money to wipe my poo. That's cool. And funny.

[bugo]

Last night at work 2 different customers in a row paid for their merchandise with coins, including a bunch of dimes.  The first customer was tossing the coins on the table when I heard the unmistakable sound of silver hitting the counter.  I noticed that several of the coins were dull and tarnished and my heart started racing.  I looked through the dimes and found 4 silver dimes.  The next customer also paid with many dimes, and I saw the same tarnished silver that I had just seen.  I pulled 5 silvers out of this pile.  I found 9 tonight and 24 in the last month.  The dimes are from 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1956, 1957 (2), 1958, and 1960.  Amazingly, I didn't find any 1964s.  Of the 15 that I found a few weeks ago, about 8 of them were 1964s.  All of the dimes are dull and quite tarnished, and the '56 is bent.  I am a member of a coin collecting forum and I had told them about the 14 silver dimes I found in a week and they were amazed.  Many of the older veteran coin collectors said they hadn't found this many in such a short time. Some of these guys will go to the bank and buy hundreds of dollars worth of coins, look through them for any interesting, old, or rare coins, and they said they had never found this many, except for the roll of Mercury dimes that the old man paid for his merchandise with.  Some of the younger guys had only found 1 or 2 in circulation.  Somebody said that the silver dimes were gone from circulation by 1970 (this is obviously wrong as I have pulled 24 silvers from circulation.) It was the best night in collecting since I started this job.

Interestingly, 9 silver dimes weigh about as much as 8 clad copper/nickel dimes.  I put the 9 dimes on our money weighing machine and it read 80 cents.

[rickmastfan67]

Nice haul there.  You do know where the mint mark is on Silver dimes?  I see you got a few Denver ones in that haul.  Denver's are normally the rarer of the two mints (and San Francisco ones are even rarer).

[bugo]

When I was a kid, Franklin 50 cent coins were as common as other change. After JFK's assassination, Congress quickly moved to remove Franklin and replace him with Kennedy. I guess for a while the Kennedy half dollars were treated by the public as commemorative coins rather than common currency, and they fell out of use. I can't remember the last time I saw one. As the point above was made, up until the 1930s we had coinage worth many dollars at a time when that was real money, and now our coinage effectively stops at a quarter dollar. I am personally all for the dollar coin, as I've seen how convenient it is in other countries that use coins for their main unit of currency.

Excelent post.

There is a whole group of people that are convinced that 50c pieces are somehow "collectable".  Untrue.  They have no value over their value as money, and, in fact, since many 100s of times of these are kept out of circulation than other coins, are likely, generations from now when they actually reach a collectable age, to be worth far less than other old coins.

Silver half dollars are collectable and worth much more than face value.  For example, I have two 1967 half dollars (40% silver) and a 1925 Stone Mountain half (90% silver).  I also just acquired an uncirculated 1973 40% silver Eisenhower dollar coin.  It's really beautiful with the dull yet shiny look of silver coins.

[bugo]

There is a whole group of people that are convinced that 50c pieces are somehow "collectable".  Untrue.  They have no value over their value as money...

Untrue.  The value is whatever someone is willing to pay for it.

Umm, OK?  There are no people willing to pay more than the monetary value of any modern US 50c coin.  So they have no collectable value and are unlikely to ever have one.  They are worth exactly 50 cents.

Wrong.  I paid more than 50 cents for an uncirculated 1973 half dollar.

[Brandon]

I use my money to wipe my poo. That's cool. And funny.

I hope you launder it before you spend it then.

[bugo]

I still look for silver coins in circulation, but it's been a dozen years since I've found one.  Sometime in the 1990s, I bought a roll of quarters for laundry money (the roll was assembled by one of the bank's other customers), and half of the quarters were silver.  Almost nobody makes that kind of mistake.

I don't believe I have ever seen a silver quarter in actual circulation. I remember when I was younger I noticed that there was an unusually high number of quarters from 1965 in circulation and I wondered why. It wasn't until years later that I learned that was the first year they were made of the copper-nickel alloy instead of silver, and the mint flooded the market with the new quarters because the silver quarters would quickly disappear from circulation because of their intrinsic value.

I see a lot of 1965 quarters and dimes.  I see quite a few from 65-69, but I haven't seen a silver quarter in years.  I've found 24 silver dimes in the last month.

[kphoger]

There is a whole group of people that are convinced that 50c pieces are somehow "collectable".  Untrue.  They have no value over their value as money...

Untrue.  The value is whatever someone is willing to pay for it.

Umm, OK?  There are no people willing to pay more than the monetary value of any modern US 50c coin.  So they have no collectable value and are unlikely to ever have one.  They are worth exactly 50 cents.

Wrong.  I paid more than 50 cents for an uncirculated 1973 half dollar.

Can I sell you crisp, new two-dollar bill for ten dollars, then?

[SP Cook]

Wrong.  I paid more than 50 cents for an uncirculated 1973 half dollar.

Uncirculated money is slightly collectable, and not relevant to our discussion of the non-collectability of ordinary coins.  Thank you.

[Alps]

Wrong.  I paid more than 50 cents for an uncirculated 1973 half dollar.

Uncirculated money is slightly collectable, and not relevant to our discussion of the non-collectability of ordinary coins.  Thank you.

Umm, OK?  There are no people willing to pay more than the monetary value of any modern US 50c coin.  So they have no collectable value and are unlikely to ever have one.  They are worth exactly 50 cents.

You're wrong.

[SP Cook]

The teller at the bank says differently.

[bugo]

Businesses wanting to limit the amount of stealable cash on hand can and do put incoming $20s right into a time-lock safe (I think some 7-11s do that routinely).  They can do same for higher bills.  Of course, anyone paying with a $50 or $100 might get a lot of small bills in change, and be SOL if there aren't enough small bills on hand.

That is true.  The store I work at doesn't even have a slot for 20s in the till.  Robbing a convenience store is a bad idea because if you're lucky, you'll leave with 50 bucks.

[Alps]

The teller at the bank says differently.

The bank will never pay more than face value for any coin, even if it's a 1913 Liberty nickel. Collectors give value to something based on how desirable it is. Otherwise, the collection of signs around my room would all be $15-$25, since it's just sheeting on substrate.

[formulanone]

I paid $100 for a $30 purchase (two tickets to the Prudential Building's observation deck) and was surprised to see the change come back as only two bills.

Back when I was a cashier at a grocery store, I preferred to give a $50 back (if available) to someone who bought $8 of beer or snacks with a $100 bill. (This way, you didn't have to hold up the parade as much to make more change.)

The worthless thing I paid a decent sum for was paying $50 to get a Zimbabwean $100,000,000,000,000 bill that was worth less than $10 USD at the time.

Knowing their oh-so-unstable currency, I would have waited until it hit $5-10, at which point a gag item is worth the trouble.

(At what point is it okay to use scientific notation for your currency?)

[SP Cook]

The bank will never pay more than face value for any coin,

True. 

And irrelevant to the discussion.

The point, of course, is that the bank will likewise never charge more than face value for a coin either.

With a bit of notice, I can have as many 50 cent pieces that I can afford to "buy", random dates from 1965-the end of production, for exactly 50 cents each. 

Because 50 cent pieces are not collectable and have no value beyond that as currency.

[kphoger]

Kind of like how, just yesterday, I got a two-dollar bill at the bank (HOLY CRAP 1976 BICENTENNIAL YEAR) for exactly two dollars.

If only they'd get Eisenhower dollars for me...

[formulanone]

Kind of like how, just yesterday, I got a two-dollar bill at the bank (HOLY CRAP 1976 BICENTENNIAL YEAR) for exactly two dollars.

I think most of them are 1976 Series (there was '03 and '95, as well).

[Scott5114]

Kind of like how, just yesterday, I got a two-dollar bill at the bank (HOLY CRAP 1976 BICENTENNIAL YEAR) for exactly two dollars.

I think most of them are 1976 Series (there was '03 and '95, as well).

Also '03A and '09.

[Alps]

With a bit of notice, I can have as many 50 cent pieces that I can afford to "buy", random dates from 1965-the end of production, for exactly 50 cents each. 

Because 50 cent pieces are not collectable and have no value beyond that as currency.

Unrelated. Quit trolling. Also, you can occasionally find random dates before 1965 as well. The bank is under no obligation to hoard silver.

[kphoger]

There are no people willing Some people are dumb enough to pay more than the monetary value of any modern US 50c coin.  So they have no collectable [sic] value and are unlikely to ever have one.  They even though they are worth exactly 50 cents.

OK, guys, is that more accurate?

Kind of like how, just yesterday, I got a two-dollar bill at the bank (HOLY CRAP 1976 BICENTENNIAL YEAR) for exactly two dollars.

I think most of them are 1976 Series (there was '03 and '95, as well).

Yeah, the whole "HOLY CRAP 1976 BICENTENNIAL YEAR" thing was sarcastic; sorry if that wasn't clear.  I wouldn't say most of them are 1976 issue, since most of the ones I get are from the 1990s or 2000s.  It did strike me as cool to get a bill from the bank that's 37 years old, though.  But it's still worth exactly two dollars, and that was my point.

[oscar]

Kind of like how, just yesterday, I got a two-dollar bill at the bank (HOLY CRAP 1976 BICENTENNIAL YEAR) for exactly two dollars.

I think most of them are 1976 Series (there was '03 and '95, as well).

Yeah, the whole "HOLY CRAP 1976 BICENTENNIAL YEAR" thing was sarcastic; sorry if that wasn't clear.  I wouldn't say most of them are 1976 issue, since most of the ones I get are from the 1990s or 2000s.  It did strike me as cool to get a bill from the bank that's 37 years old, though.  But it's still worth exactly two dollars, and that was my point.

FWIW, I got three crisp $2 bills from my bank earlier this year.  Both of the ones still in my possession are 1976 series. 

Maybe too many $2 bills were printed from the 1976 series, so the supply lasted a long time, and there was no need to print new ones for a few decades.

[Scott5114]

Maybe too many $2 bills were printed from the 1976 series, so the supply lasted a long time, and there was no need to print new ones for a few decades.

This is exactly what happened. uspapermoney.info has the statistics for each series if you're interested in the breakdown. Demand for $2s has been going up, and the 76s have been wearing out, so more and more frequent printings have been taking place.

[leroys73]

$2 bills are fun, and it's been years since I saw a 50 cent coin. $1 coins aren't particularly uncommon though. I tend to get them regularly from parking garages, train stations, and change machines.

I'll go get a bunch of $2 bills every once in a while just for fun. It's always fun seeing store clerks' reactions when I send them.

Really, I have had $1 coins refused by the "teller person" at DFW airport. Also my bank doesn't always have $2 bills, 50 centers, or dollar coins.

[bugo]

It's a 1964 silver quarter, the last year they made them out of silver.  I pulled it out of a roll at work.  I've been searching for silver quarters for several months now and I thought they were all gone from circulation, but somehow this one survived. I also found a 1945 wheat penny and a Series 1995 $10 bill.