Heres an interesting fact about 1963_B (Barr notes ) these are not as rare as you might think 484 million were printed, 471 million regular notes and 13 million STAR NOTES, in fact these notes with Barr,s signature were produced through 1969 adding millions of additional notes.
Thanks for the great knowledge! He was in the right place at the right time! Imagine being in pffice less than one month and get almost a half a billion notes made with your name on them...
They were also hoarded by some at the time who were expecting a future rarity. When I inherited a pile of notes from a deceased relative some years ago, the pile included about 10 Barr notes that looked pulled from circulation. It's possible that many more of them survived because of this, which would also reduce their rarity. From asking around and researching, including some past threads on this forum, they don't appear to have the value or rarity that one would think.
Yeah, tha Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the context. They're are modern, so less time for them to be damaged or disgarded.
They have an interesting and kind of a funny story; the Secretary of the Treasury Henry Fowler resigned about a month before he would have been out of office anyway, when Nixon would be sworn in and appoint his own cabinet. They needed to authorize a new series of $1 bills so they put Joseph Barr's signature on them, the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury who then became the acting Secretary when Fowler resigned. People speculated that because Barr would only be serving about a month, that bills with his signature would be rare, and a lot of people saved them expecting they would go up in value due to their perceived rarity. However, they misunderstood how currency production actually worked; they don't stop producing a series just because the Treasurer/Secretary of Treasury changes; they keep printing them until the amount authorized for the series is printed. They were still printing Series 1963B well into 1969, and about 484 million of them were printed, so they were not at all rare. Also, because so many people were saving them, the bill in uncirculated or about uncirculated condition is very plentiful and easy to acquire. The supply greatly exceeded the demand, and they never became particularly valuable. At some point people saving them either gave up on the idea of them being worth a lot of money someday and just spent them, or they got found later and people spent them not caring or not knowing what made them significant. In high condition they might be worth slightly more than face value, but not by much. Maybe like $5 to $10 on a good day and that's if they're in excellent condition (can get quite a bit more for the star notes though). Anything less than a high AU they're basically only worth face value. I found one in circulation while it was still in pretty decent condition, and since it only cost me face value I figured, why not save it. It will always have an interesting story, if not high value. If you find any in decent condition, may as well save them. Not because they're necessarily particularly valuable, but just because they're interesting. The story behind them is more valuable than the bill itself lol but what is a collection if not saving things because they're interesting?
-That is interesting: it reminds me of something that happened here in Canada (but for different reasons). In 1967, the BoC issued "Centennial $1.00" with 1867-1967 printed twice where the serial number would normally be placed. Many Canadians thought these commemorative ONES were super collectible. They figured that they would be valuable in 50 years time so kept them en masse. Every Canadian had the same idea (& some collectors kept bundles - X100 & bricks-X1000 of these!) The other thing they didn't know was that the printers had produced 12,000,000 of the no-serial/Confederation dated types but only 10,000,000 (& less) of regular serial # (& even replacements). All together: about 150,000,000 Centennial notes were issued so they ended up being super common (but the "1867-1967" type are the worse). Numista has a cool algorithm called the Numista Rarity Index (or NRI for short). It is only "10" for this note (low # super common/a number near 100 super rare)! Here's a not-so-common replacement (for those who don't want to take the Numista link). The super common type have "1867-1967" where *N/O121111 is:
