Hello fellow paper currency collectors! It happens to be my 500th post, and I wanted to share a new find: This $20 showed up in my bank withdrawal today. And this cent of the same year turned up in change yesterday.
Those are some nice finds and congrats on the 500th post! I had a double strike out today. My usual bank that I frequent every one or two weeks to buy their excess ones had none to spare. Then a teller who lets me see what he has in his mute pile at another bank was busy preparing to ship out notes in those large canvas bags that get picked up so there's no telling what I may have missed there. Oh, well. You can't win everyday, I guess.
Even with all the notes that have been shipped out, I think that there are plenty still in circulation. It’s surprising what you can find- I obtained 2 consecutive 1985 $5 notes at the beginning of this year. Also, bank tellers are surprised that some people find old notes desirable. But, there are quite a few collectors too. One day, the teller at my bank had a 1985 $50 note saved for me. And, when I came back the next day, she said someone had already exchanged for it.
It's special for the fact that it is an old small face note that was printed over 40 years ago. Its design is far superior to the newer large size portrait notes of the present day. While it is not worth much over face value, these don't turn up everyday or anything in circulation. I don't think I've found a 1974 $20 note before myself.
I do concede that there are some nice, colorful attributes beginning with the introduction of Series 2004 notes but let's face it, those Series 1996 - 2001 designs are an artistic abomination in comparison to their small-face predecessors. The BEP basically admitted as much but sadly couldn't care less about this; all they cared was that the populous was willing to accept and use them. A BEP employee was quoted as saying as such in a coin/currency publication just prior to the introduction of the large face $100 notes in 1996. Currency designers and engravers of times' past, particularly of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, would be rolling in their graves at this line of thinking.
