Paper Money: New Acquisitions

You know, I was thinking about this recently, actually. About how if one wanted to have a better chance of finding older notes (pre-1995) that strap searching at a rural bank would probably bring you better results, than a bank closer to a city.
I live near Boston, which is obviously a major city, so when I go to my bank, and get a few straps to search through, I usually find nothing. Once in a while, an older note, or a star note, will pop up, but that is a pretty rare occurrence.

Lately though, I've been thinking of taking a road trip out to rural western Massachusetts, or maybe up into the more rural areas of Maine, or New Hampshire, to try my luck with getting notes to search through.

 

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i would say that, of all the pre-1990 bills, the ones i see most frequently are the 1963 series (and the A and B series as well). i have tried to think on it and figure out why this would be, and the only conclusion i can come to is that the older notes are coming from collections or hoards owned by people that can no longer afford to keep them. how else would a 1974 series $10 or a 1950 $100 end up in my drawer, in better condition than most of the '06 and '09 bills? it had to be kept somewhere secure and protected for a long time. where else but inside a vault or collection?

also, being in the rural area i'm in, i would guess that i do have greater access to a pool of resources that isn't as heavily scoured as a more urban area. i know of about two people that frequent my bank to look for finds, and they don't come by very often.

 

I'm pretty much certain that older style bills are more in the rural towns. I live near Sacramento, not too far from San Francisco, and it seems like we constantly have a flow of brand new cash, even if it isn't SF FRB. My older sister was out in Maine for a while visiting and I asked that she look through cash as she got it at her job and that definitely proved to yield better results than having my whole bank get me older cash, as far as older style cash goes. I got all my oldest notes for all my denominations from that very rural selcluded town in Maine. It also showed that 95% of the bills I purchased for face from her were Boston, proving my previous theory about cash not circulating much in more isolated towns.

 

Well, that gives me hope then. I'd better high tale it up to Maine, and do some strap searching!

 

Not fair... Theres no country for like 3 hours from here urrrgggghhhhhh! Just kidding of course but I do wish I could go somewhere like Maine. The first thing I'd do is go to the bank, ask them to look through their droors for the oldest bills and grab them. I sent her $100 and asked her to do that for me but she ended up borrowing it and hasn't paid it back since, and now shes back out here in the concrete jungle.:rollling:

 

i pulled a low serial $20 out of the register when i was working at the bar last night.

2006 IB 00005944 A

i don't know if i'll keep it or not, but it's the lowest serial i've come across in circulation.

 

I keep all 4 digit serial numbers, but keep in mind, there are still some 3 digit serial numbers if you look hard enough. For a note like this one, I'd base keeping it off of condition because IBA is 2006 NY, which is very common district/series combo. What would you grade it?

 

there's a small tear on the bottom and a vertical crease in the middle, but otherwise it's crisp. without the tear, it would probably get an AU grade. i don't know though; i'm a super-novice in paper money grading, but the tear all but ruins it for me. plus, as you said, it's from a pretty common stock so it will probably re-enter circulation as soon as i find something more collectible.

 

Yeah a pretty common block, it is. Is it possible for you to post pictures? This could better help me to determin if you should keep it or not or have you already made up your mind about using it to grab something else?

 

I'm new to paper money so these common large notes are my New Acquisitions .

 

While those notes may not be in the best condition, they are some of the standard notes to acquire if you're collecting large-size notes. Congrats on the newest additions and I'm sure they'll appreciate in value in no time.

 

Sandy

 

I really like those large size 1914 series, x115. Very nice.

Here are a couple of notes I found while searching through straps:

1995 $1 and 2006 $5 almost radar:



Probably both spenders, but these were the best finds of the day. The $1 was printed in May 1997, which is kind of cool to me, seeing as most $1 notes don't make it 14 years in circulation. Kind of makes you wonder where it was, as it's condition seems to suggest it was either in somebody's dresser drawer for a while, or it sat in a bank vault someplace. Granted it's far from Unc, but it's in good shape, for a note it's age. It's also from a 96m print run, so, not rare, unfortunately.

As for the $5, it is a trinary, which is cool I guess, but it also ticks me off because it's just the latest in a long succession of near miss 'almost radar' notes, for me. :heated:

So, yeah, not the best finds, but it's been a slow day. Lol.

 

I come to find about 3-4 1995 $1's per strap. I keep all $1's pre Series 1995 for that very reason. I even find a lot of 'A' blocks telling me that there are some older '95 $1's still out there. Especially NY, there were certainly a ton of them printed! The $5 on the other hand is in fact a trinary. I'd keep the $5 and spend the $1. Oh and I almost forgot to mention; I pulled a 1995 $1 Chicago star note out of a strap search about 3 weeks ago. This is another thing that tells me 1995 $1's are still too common to collect (for my collection, anyways) because a good rule of thumb is; if you can still find star notes of a particular series in circulation, the non-star version isn't scarce because star notes are always the first notes everybody grabs and stores in their collections.. Still, good luck with whatver you end up doing. Oooohhh yeah and not to mention, about a year ago, I found about 20 consecutive 1995 $1 LV's just an FYI. I kept them all and I still have them stashed around some where.

tbud

 

Thanks for the thoughts, Travis.

My thinking was to keep the $5, as well, as I also see '95 $1's pretty regularly.

I usually pass on most of the '95 $1's I find, because they are so common. In fact, I only have one of them in my collection, and I only saved it, because it's a web note.

 

Web notes are all worth keeping, IMO. Nice $5 find.

 

Here are a few I found today. The $20 is my oldest $20 star find. I found A$10 star from 1985 a few months ago. I think they are all keepers. What do you guys Think?

 

IMO, they are all keepers... Nice Barr, btw. I also love the big head $20 star. Those are always fun to find, especially due to the low series production of big head notes.

 

My new ones:

 

Nice display Clay. I don't see the old style PCGS holders very often anymore. I wonder if PCGS will ever change to a holder that protects the paper label, like PMG and CGA ?