Your $1 bill could be worth thousands – if it has these 3 things

Fayetteville, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA/NEXSTAR) – Have some $1 bills lying around? Before spending them, you might want to check if they are worth more than a buck.

Earlier this week, Wealthy Nickel, a finance blog, reminded currency collectors of an error made last decade by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

As you probably know, every paper printed in the United States – from small $1 bills to $100 bills – is printed with a serial number. Like your Social Security number, there should not be any duplicates. But, according to reports from Numismatic News and paper money grading service PMG, there are more than 6 million $1 bills that share a serial number with other $1 bills.

According to both outlets, 10 years ago, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing directed its printing facilities in Washington, D.C. and Fort Worth, Texas to print millions of $1 bills. Unfortunately, those bills had matching numbers.

To be clear, this misprint does not make the money worthless. The serial number is a way to tell which Federal Reserve bank issued the bill, the series in which it was printed, and which one it is among the millions printed.

In fact, the duplicate went unnoticed until two collectors, Ed Zegers of Maryland and Karol Winograd of Florida, noticed the inconsistency. According to Numismatic News, they decided to begin attempting to find error pairs in 2017. By the end of 2020, the pair had received 10 pairs.

Their database of duplicate notes has since been transferred to Project 2013b, which recently reported the 16th matching of the $1 bill. The project includes more than 47,000 $1 bills with serial numbers from error batches, most of which are participant-less.

As Wealthy Nickel explains, there are three ways to determine if your $1 bill is part of this collection:

• “Series 2013” should appear to the right of the image of President George Washington
• To the left of Washington, there should be a seal with a “B”
• Below that, the serial number should end with a star, and fall between B00000001 – B00250000 or B03200001-B09600000

It’s hard to say how much these $1 bills might be worth, but they seem to be better in pairs. A set auctioned by Stacks Bowers sold for $7,200 in 2021. PMG, which graded both bills, rated the Fort Worth bill as a 66 Gem Uncirculated EPQ (the scale goes up to 70), while its Washington twin was a PMG 35 Choice Very Fine. Another set was reportedly sold on eBay for $25,000.

As with any currency you think may be worth more than its printed value – from wheat pennies and buffalo nickels to $2 bills and error notes – you should talk to a verified expert for an evaluation. Needed

“Odd items are always set aside, but that doesn’t make them rare or very valuable,” Dustin Johnson, vice president of numismatics at Heritage Auctions, told Nexstar last year.