I just received these 1976 $2.00 bills with stamps and have been stamped with the US Postal seal. Both are in nice condition. Stamped April 13, 1976 Vernon, CT Talcottville STA. USA. Serial numbers are very close in sequential order A 07750638 A - A 07750642 A Does the dollar value increase with stamped bicentennial bills and how much are they worth? Pictures are attached. Steve
Overall, they're not worth a whole lot over face. However some people look for certain postmarks and/or stamps that could conceivably drive the value up with the right buyer.
A lot of people thought they would be valuable, there were discussions on the radio etc the day they were released about getting them stamped at the post office. I remember my mother going and getting some and then taking them to the PO and having them postally cancelled. I still have them, and have actually scavenged some at the bank recently. Because so many people did it, unless they are from your hometown they do not have much value over face value.
There are several factors involved in the valuation of the First Day of Issue 1976 $2.00 Federal Reserve Notes with a stamp and postmark of 13 April 1976. For example, notes from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve District are always valued higher because there were far fewer printed than for other districts. The two notes you have are attractive notes - The postmark is very clear and readable. These notes from the Boston Federal Reserve District are fairly common, and the stamps (Scott Number 1618 - Liberty Bell and Scott Number 1596 - Americana, Eagle with Shield) are also fairly common. I would estimate the value of the notes to be in the $3.00 to $5.00 each range. I collect these notes and have District sets and 50 States.
If it is in truly great shape and the note is otherwise greatly centered, ChCu, etc, these can bring some premium to them!
Is there any way that the stamping could lower the value? I have one that was stamped but it was a very weak stamping and the actual stamp is gone. The only reason I kept this note is it is a low serial number and in very good shape.
I've seen First Day of Issue notes postmarked without a stamp, and, personally, I'm not interested in them. For me, the stamp makes collecting interesting. If the stamp was once on the note and part of the postmark is now missing or glue residue remains, then the note is even less appealing than one that was postmarked without a stamp.
I have 5 of these consecutive numbers from Clayton La......my dad got these marked. My brother has the other 5 I think...
I always thought this "first day of issue" thing to be a weird crossing over of stamp collecting with coin collecting lol... and never really got why this got going back in 1976 (I have never seen any other piece of currency this kind of thing was done with; if such things exist, I haven't come across it yet). I suppose people were excited about the new design to some degree but they were treating the new $2's as if they were some kind of rare collectible rather than something the BEP would be printing in the millions. Ironically the popularity of the design probably led to the demise of $2 as a practical denomination (much as the JFK halves led to the death of half dollars as a practically used coin); so many people saved them that few people actually spent them, so people got used to the idea of doing without a space for it in cash registers. Though the $2 was probably in decline anyway by 1976; as much as the public seemed to believe otherwise, the redesign of the $2 was more of an attempt to get people to actually put it to practical use again, rather than to commemorate the bicentennial (therein lies the irony of an attempt to promote the denomination leading to its decline lol...); however most people treated it as basically a souvenir. Stamping (sometimes literally with a stamp) was a method to connect these with the bicentennial and prove when they were received. Whether that raises the value or not is in the eye of the beholder; I know some will assign extra value to these and do. Personally I'm not interested; I'm a coin (and currency) collector not a stamp collector, and to me such things on a note detracts from the desirability rather than adding to it. But it is an interesting part of history; the bicentennial was a big deal and people were buying and selling tons of memorabilia related to it. Some of it was a naive belief that it would be "worth something" in the future (not realizing the obvious fact that if everyone's saving stuff, it will not be at all rare in the future) but some of it was just born of the excitement of the bicentennial which was a big deal at the time. My main interest in it at all was the fact I was born that year so I hear a lot about it from my parents. I guess to make a long story short, "your mileage may vary."
I have one hundred of these in sequential order postmarked Darby, PA and for some reason the Darby postmark is supposed to be special. I dunno. I am not really into it either, but they were my Dad's and I recall his exuberance over them so I keep them.
There are a handful of 1976 $2 bill sets that have been hand cancelled in Philadelphia on April 13th, 1976. These $2 bill sets are in sets of 50, which include chronological serial #'s on the $2 bills, and also have affixed to them, the 1976 US Flag stamps. These stamps were affixed in order as each state entered the union and then hand cancelled in Philadelphia where the Declaration of Independence was signed. I own two of these sets and was actually one of three people who made these sets become reality. We made ten sets in total. We lived in New York City at the time, so that helped us obtain the 500 $2 bills with chronological serial #'s. We then purchased the US Flag stamps and while my Dad drove toward Philadelphia, my brother and I carefully affixed the stamps to the $2 bills. We then stood in line and patiently watched the USPS clerk hand stamp each of the 500 $2 bills that we brought in. The USPS clerk tasked with hand cancelling that day told us that he had not seen anything similar to what we had done and we think that very few, if any sets similar exist except for the 10 sets that we assembled. If anyone knows of other sets, I'd be very interested in learning of them. In any case, there are very few full sets in existence today which make these rare collectibles.
In '76 I was a museum director and got $400 of them to use in the change draw. There use extra interest in them because this was to be the only issue of this note. When the Trumble was engraved, they cropped out 5 of the members, which took out ALL the members from Connettticut. The state filed suit to stop the production. The treasury claimed it could not replace the notes in time, but promised that the 2nd. printing would have all the delegates on them. Con. agreed, and look how taking the Governments worked for them. One of the great things about Trumble's painting, is that all the faces are REAL. He spent years finding all the faces. All these years, and I'm still sad about it. g
How could the stamping lower the value if the bill isn't worth anything but $2 in the first place? Andrew
Just found some $2 bills that my Dad had hand stamped in Jersey City , NJ with the State postage stamps affixed to them. Appears to be a complete 50 state set with bills in numerical order. These things worth anything?