Recently, I've gotten a few new 2017 Toms with a suffix 'C' in the serial number. Has anyone else seen them? For years, I'd see an errant "B" and figured there was enough demand for go through the serial numbers again. However, I can't imagine there was enough need to produce so many $2 bills that warranted going to the serial numbers ending in 'C'. It would seem silly to print and then stockpile so many notes before they would be used. During the 9 years its been, there has been two administration changes which would trigger a new series. But not on these Toms. What gives?
They have indeed been printing a lot of $2 bills lately. The 2017A printings got up to the GB and LC blocks, and the more recent 2021 printings have nearly finished their own LB block. I don't know why $2 bills are becoming more popular, but the Federal Reserve's data shows that the number of Toms in circulation has doubled in the last 15 years. It's the Fed that tells the BEP what denominations to print -- they wouldn't order this many $2 bills if they didn't expect to need them soon. The very delayed timing of recent series changes is a separate issue, affecting lots of denominations. Several denominations of the 2017A series, with signatures from Trump's first term, stayed in production through almost the entire Biden administration. And now all denominations of the 2021 series, with Biden-era signatures, remain in production more than a year into Trump's second term. Does anyone know why the BEP is so slow to implement new signatures lately?
