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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Small Size, post: 2401374, member: 77924&quot;]I&#039;m many things, an elitist isn&#039;t one. I began to be serious about collecting currency in high school, when I received a gently circulated 1934A $20 FRN in change in 1974. It had no premium value then (it basically has none now). It was a good bit of money to just put aside. The &quot;smart&quot; thing to do was spend it.</p><p>But looking at the one note for hours made me a real collector. It got me to learn about face plate numbers, back plate numbers, how to tell what position on the sheet the note had been before it was cut, how it had been printed, how the way it was printed was different from the way notes were printed later, why Jackson had more fingers on it than on a modern $20, etc.</p><p>That note has been joined by hundreds of others that form my collection today. Some are significant rarities. Together they tell many stories; about the history of paper money in this country, about the history of the country in general. Some are war notes. Some are emergency notes, printed in haste during the Great Depression. Some have subtle differences in the obligations printed on them, subtleties that speak eloquently of the evolution of the concept of money and how the banking system changed in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. Some are works of art that would be worthy of display in a museum.</p><p>None of them is any more meaningful to me than the one common old $20 that made me into the collector I am today.</p><p>Collect what you love. Never care what anybody else says about it.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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