Your $5 bills could be worth thousands due to a rare printing error — here’s what to look for
If you have got $5 bills in your possession, then it might be good idea to take a second look at them. Today, there are more than 826 million $5 bill notes in circulation, and turns out that some of them may be worth hundreds if not thousands.
According to GOBankingRates, $5 bills with serials such as "G88888888A” or "B55555555C" could be worth a lot due to their "solid" gold serial numbers, meaning that all the serial are identical.
According to sources, only one in 11 million of these bills have these unique serial numbers, which is why some of them sell for over $2,000 each.
As per The Penny Hoarder, there are 15 types of valuable serial numbers -- low serial number, high number, flippers, star notes, repeaters and super repeaters, solids and near solids, binary bills, trinary bills, ladders, birthdays, radars and super radars, consecutive, doubles, double quads, and bookends.
"Oddities that can make currency more valuable include currency that was never circulated, printing mishaps, bills with a serial number consisting of the same digit repeated and high-denomination bills that are no longer printed — $500 and above,” said Todd Stearn, founder and CEO of The Money Manual.
On top of this, the other two factors contributing to the value are rarity and condition. Because $5 bills and banknotes have a deep history, those from the earlier years will hold the most value for dealers as well as collectors. For example, the 1861 $5 demand notes use a patented steel plate process sold for $38,400, making it one of the most valuable $5 bills ever. The front of this bill has a statue representing freedom as well as a portrait of Alexander Hamilton.
Other than this, the $5 legal notes which were issued in 1869 with a portrait of Andrew Jackson on the front and a “vignette representing the Pioneer Family,” are also valuable with an average value of $1,400. The bills which were issued in 1914 are also pretty valuable. One of these can fetch as much as $196.
“We’ve paid thousands of dollars for a 1953 $10 bill with a rare serial number, and a few bucks for an old $10 bill from the 1800s," OldMoneyPrices.com said.
Other than the $5 bill, there are also the Gold Seal $10 Gold Certificate Notes which can fetch a lot of money. Prior to 1934, you could actually bring in these bills to a local bank and receive actual gold in exchange.
The notes with printing errors tend to be worth way more than the face value. These errors include mismatched serial numbers, overprints, wrinkles, or miscut bills. You can take a proper look at the serial number or check the number on websites such as Fancy Serial Number Checker to see if your bill can fetch you hundreds of dollars or not.
This article originally appeared 1 month ago.
