San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Currency collectors hope their number’s up
I’m not a collector. But Chris Naughton — a building manager in San Antonio — recently showed me a hobby I’m in danger of starting. It’s right up my alley.
Naughton caught my attention by telling me about “star notes.” They’re U.S. currency that have a little star printed at the end of the serial number — the result of a misprint and reuse of a serial number by the Federal Reserve on a replacement bill. Because some are relatively rare, collectors will pay a premium to acquire such notes.
He explained how he and other hobbyists hunt for interesting serial number combinations on bills and collect those, too. More on that in a moment. First, let me introduce you to another star notes collector.
Marie B. — a San Antonio woman who preferred not to be fully identified — also told me her story of acquiring star notes.
She handles currency in her day job, and a few years back she noticed a not-yet circulated packet of 100 $1 bill star notes — with serial numbers in order. Note: Serial numbers in order is how not-yet circulated currency arrives when ordered in bulk directly from a bank, which in turn orders it from the Federal Reserve.
Knowing that star notes are interesting to collectors and intrigued by them herself, she bought the packet from her workplace at the $100 face value. Later, she got curious about what other collectors would think of her 100 sequentially numbered star notes in perfect unused condition. So she listed them for sale online.
“I just wanted to see,” she told me. “I originally listed them for $800. Then I got an offer of $1,000 within a week.” She decided to keep them. “Deep down I knew I wasn’t going to pull the trigger” to sell, she said.
Other types
Naughton explained that other types of serial numbers are interesting to collectors, as well. One type is “repeaters.” As an example, he showed me a dollar bill he owns with the serial number 22882277. He’s not going to spend that one. Maybe ever.
Also of interest are bills with a very low serial number, like one with six zeros and two other digits. That would be a serial number like 00000045. That’s a premium bill. Naughton showed me a picture of a bill in his collection with serial number 00069000. Niiiice.
Other interesting patterns also attract collectors.
I found something called a “radar” serial number bill listed for sale for $130. It’s called radar because the eight digits form a kind of numerical palindrome, in this case 98011089.
“The holy grail would be a solid serial number, like 777777777,” Naughton says.
I verified that by finding a $100 bill with the serial number 33333333 listed online for $6,899.
Compared with collectibles like coins or baseball cards, the serial number bill collector’s business is mostly just individfor
uals finding ways to trade with each other online. If stores trade in these, it’s at a very low level, with just a few on display at a coin and card shop or at a trade show as curios.
Marie B.’s experience acquiring a packet of star bills for which somebody would pay 10 times face value spurred her interest further. In subsequent years she managed to acquire uncirculated star note packets eight times. But she’s never sold any of them.
Naughton admits selling is difficult for him as well. Maybe impossible.
With all of these premium serial number bills, of course, the “value” is entirely and forever merely what any willing buyer would pay to a willing seller. But Beanie Babies, bitcoin and Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream” all derive value that way. Unlike those, however, the bills are at least worth face value.
Birthday notes
Related to acquiring bills with low-probability serial numbers is seeking the “birthday note.” This means finding bills with eight digits for the month, date and year of your
birthday or the birthday of someone you love in the MM/ DD/YYYY format. The odds of finding your preferred date in the wild are low. One website puts it at one in 96 million, but I can’t say I’ve verified that math.
Birthday note snobs insist the U.S. date format is the only valid one, so serial number 19720412 is not April 12, 1972. Instead, only 04121972 is the correct birthday note format
that date.
You can get help, though. A “birthday matcher” website allows you to input your email and the date you’re looking for. I can’t vouch for the site, but the service takes both seekers and sellers, sending each an email if there’s a match to allow them to work out the details of a transaction. They suggest the buyer pay from 20 to 50 times face value for a great condition birthday note.
Of course, that multiplier makes more sense for a $1 bill than it does for a $20 or $100.
Another site generally charges $50 or more for its listing of specific dates. On one hand, that’s a lot for a $1 bill, but on the other, they’ve solved the one in 96 million odds of finding a particular “birthday note.”
Maybe this is a great Valentine’s Day idea for the nerdiest person in your life.
OCD? Who, me?
As a hobby for me, I worry this one would exacerbate any teeny-tiny obsessive-compulsive disorder tendencies I might already have. So I’m not sure I can do it.
Marie B. says that on a 1 to 5 scale for OCD, she’d be a 2. Naughton owns up to more obsessiveness.
“I don’t know how you stop,” he says. “Someone who’s got this kind of OCD stuff can’t not do this. Any guy who pays you, you still look at the serial numbers of the money he gave you.”
Marie B. says she keeps her compulsion mostly in check.
“For example, I will not necessarily look at my money when I receive it,” she says. “But I will definitely check before I spend it. It’s not a compulsion. There are days at the job where I’m not looking. And I’ve definitely passed on star notes that are in really bad condition. But in a non-OCD way, I would definitely check your cash. You might have something with more than face value on it.”
Naughton says the hobby is a natural: “The cool thing about collecting bills with serial numbers is that with bills, everybody has them. … Everybody might have a lottery ticket.”
Oh, by the way? If you find my birthday note in the wild, please send it to me by April 12.