Hola folks. I found you after searching around for experts on paper money on the web. I have a question about a bill that I purchased when working at a bank many moons ago. My question is mostly of the "how could this happen" nature, with a smattering of "Insurance?" thrown in. The bill in question is a 1995 $1 bill that appears to have the ink smeared across about 1/3 of the back of the bill. See below for detail. The bill is definitely not in perfect condition as it apparently circulated for at least 7 years before it got to me. Any insight would be great. Thanks a bunch!
At first glance the note looks to be a true to life error. You can even see where the adjacent note bleed out. Looks like the scrapper that is supposed to clean the surface of the plate and just leave the ink in the recesses loaded up or wasn't working very well. Good find! I would say the value would be in the 30-50 range because of condition, but again It's very subjective when putting a value on error notes. It comes down to what someone is willing to pay?
+1 on ronterry. You never know if someone might see an error like that and say "wow... cool, I guess" or "oh my gosh I need it!". Good luck with whatever you do though. Did you pay face for it or did you pay some premiums on it?
When did you find it? This particular bill was printed in June of 1998, not 1995 (and would have been initially released to circulation a few months later than that). 1995 is just the series of this bill, not the year that it was printed.
I see. I wasn't aware of that. I found it around 2002-2003. I worked in the bank vault and we were allowed to purchase any money that came through at face value. So I paid a buck for it. I also have something along the lines of $150 in silver half dollars from the same bank. Most of them are not in very good condition, but I bought them bc I thought they were interesting. One of the girls that worked there found a $25 face value krugerand and was allowed to purchase it for that amount. It was a gold coin and she just sold it for the weight of the coin instead of going to an expert to determine a proper value for it. The best find I had there was one of the quarters that had the wheat misprint on it. Bought it for a quarter, sold it for $325.
Your bill is most likely what is called a solvent smear error. Basically what happens is when the BEP cleans the machines, they use ink solvent to get off any residue from the printing process. When that is not cleaned off properly, the solvent will smear onto the note and produce a "running" look to the note. These errors are pretty uncommon to have a large amount of the bill covered. Nice find! Pm Sent
Dr. Kegg, Just so I know a little more about errors, how much would you say this particular one is worth?
The bill is not a miss print. It's when they clean the rollers and the mat blanket. The blanket wash runs onto the paper when they are cleaning the printing equipment during any production.
