A family relative passed last year, and as part of the estate I ended up with some bills. There were 3 $1 face value silver notes with blue seals, one red seal regular (not silver cert) $5 note, and these two singles that for the life of me I have no idea why they were saved. They're not in great condition, having been folded / creased and whatnot. Is there anything to these, or are they basically just worth a buck?
Series 1963B $1s featured Joseph Barr as Treasury Secretary, who was only in office a few months. Many were (and are) under the impression that the series is scarce due to his short tenure in office. In reality, many millions of 1963B $1s (Barr Notes) were printed, and many were hoarded and collected due to his short term of office as well. Worth FV in VG/F condition, which is what they look like from the scan. But if they have sentimental value, keep 'em!
They're definitely worn, and I expected them to be face value, but thank you so much for the background information. I could not figure out why they were there. Even the $5 red seal is fairly worn, but it looks cool.
I didn't know what a mule was, do I did a web search and came up with a link to a different topic on this board. This post specifically talks about what makes a mule, and I read it several times while looking at the pictures of these bills. I'm still not sure what you saw on this particular scan that makes these bills mules. Can you give me something specific that you're looking at?
Barr was only in office for 31 days. He took office Dec 21st at the end of the Johnson Administration. After Nixon took office in Jan 1969 he appointed David M Kennedy to be Sec of the Treasury and he took office Jan 20th 1969. People though the notes with his signature would be rare due to his short tenure but notes with his signature were delivered through Nov 1969 and they produced over 430 million notes. I know of people who hoarded hundreds or even thousands of notes and they were still holding them as late as the 1990's.
drathbun, on the reverse of the notes just below the E in ONE, is the plate number. In this case 1004 and 1113. The plate that printed these were also used to print the 1963A series. So you have a new series front with an old series back. Known as a mule. Not all back plates from 63A were used to print 63B notes. This is one type of mule as Numbers explained in his post.
I found one of those Barr notes in my cash drawer when I worked as a cashier at Crocs. Was probably still AU, it had barely been touched (was folded slightly but still very crisp). Interesting, but probably not very valuable. My guess is someone deposited it at a bank not knowing or not caring what it was, and we ended up with it when we got change for the drawer from the same bank. Not sure how long it took people to realize these would never become especially valuable, basically because 1: they weren't rare, 430 million of them were printed; and 2. tons of people were saving them because they thought they'd be valuable, meaning even in high grades they'd never be hard to find. I suspect people hoarded them and hoped they'd be valuable someday, and after a generation or two they just forgot about them or gave up and started spending and depositing them. In really choice condition some can fetch $20 (and talking basically absolutely perfect here), which allowing for inflation since 1969 actually isn't that much of an appreciation in value. But well it's a great conversation piece if nothing else. Mine cost me only $1 so it was a great buy. Here's a pic of mine. http://banknotebank.com/viewnote/922212
