This is a 2003A one dollar federal reserve note from the federal reserve bank of Ohio. The backside shows a complete offset printing error with the front being printed on the back of the note in full detail.
Was lucky to find one of these strap hunting recently! Got it for face value, $1! Video is timed to drop on 9/29 at 5:50pm! Probably my best strap hunt find to date.
Pulled the sold data on this one because I wanted to know whether the amount of coverage is what people pay for, and it turns out it mostly is not. 90 days of completed eBay sales, 39 unique offset notes after throwing out 6 rows that were really miscuts or misalignments wearing the word offset. Whole basket median 199.95, but that mixes denominations, so the honest cut is by face value. $1 notes, n=13, median 145.00, range 49.00 to 392.57. Two things surprised me. First, which side the ghost lands on does not decide the price at $1. Face printed on back n=4 median 147.47, back printed on face n=4 median 157.00, basically even. But there is one controlled pair in the data worth staring at. One seller listed two 1981 $10s on the same day, both described as partial offset transfer, consecutive stock numbers, and the face-on-back brought 265.00 (4 Sep) while the back-on-face brought 110.00 (4 Sep). Same seller, same series, same wording, 2.4x apart. So the side may start paying once you are above $1 face. Has anyone here sold both directions on the same denomination? Second, and this is the thing I would check before pricing one of these. The top $1 sale of the whole 90 days was 392.57 on 13 Aug, a 1977A Richmond note, and it was an overprint offset, the serial numbers and seals ghosted onto the back rather than the intaglio plate. That is 2.7x the $1 median. A normal offset transfer happens before the third printing, so the ghost should carry no serials and no seals. If the ghost on yours does show a serial or a seal, it is the scarcer animal and should not be priced off these rows at all. Also worth knowing if you ever search solds yourself. "Offset printing error" returns 39 rows in 90 days, "offset transfer error" returns 5, and "full offset printing error one dollar note" returns zero. Same physical error, three different names, and the phrase most owners would actually type finds nothing. Slab did not pay at this face value either. Graded $1 n=2 median 112.50 against raw $1 n=11 median 149.95, which is the fourth time I have watched the holder cost more than the spread under about $10 face.
