Hi again y'all , Was helping my aunt clean up my uncle's estate... She handed me these, he kept them in his safe for years according to her. Top is just a standard 1977 $1 as far as I can tell... Bottom one's reverse has a little something going on with size and reverse ink ... Opinions?
I'm putting my money on a post-printing chemical reaction. I can't imagine what error in the printing process would produce that.
Sunlight will do that. Leave the note face-down in a sunny windowsill for a long time, and this is exactly what you get. There are probably chemicals that will do the trick much faster, but I don't know the details.
Not an "inking error:" definitely post-print damage (either light or chemical). From what I have seen in the past 50+ years of collecting, I'd go for chemical damage but at this point -it really is irrelevant. Smell it for a strange odour (& that could help you determine how it changed colour). No smell- sunlight damage/smell -chemical.
