Don’t be so quick to turn over your dollar bills, as they might be worth more than just a dollar, thanks to a printing error that could make them worth thousands.
According to a recent report from Fox Business, some U.S. coin and currency collectors are reportedly willing to fork over thousands of dollars for $1 bills from two printing batches because of a printing error made by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
Chad Hawk, the vice president of PMG, a professional paper money grading company headquartered in Sarasota, Florida, shared with the outlet that the bills that have the errors were printed in 2014 and 2016.
“It’s very rare that the Federal Reserve would mess up an order, and then it reaches circulation,” Hawk said. “You just don’t see that error in U.S. currency.”
The error saw the two batches from 2014 and 2016 printed with the same serial numbers, equating to more than 6 million $1 bills being misprinted and put into circulation before the mistake was found.
“In 2014 and 2016, there were orders sent by the Federal Reserve to facilities in both D.C. and Fort Worth to go ahead [and] print the [same] serial numbers,” Hawk explained to Fox News.
While the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing didn’t identify the problem for some time, currency collectors have, and now they are on the hunt for bills in the serial number range in the hopes of collecting matching pairs.
Altogether, Hawk says there are 6.4 million pairs of the bills, but they aren’t worth much unless they can be paired together. While he says they have been out there for the last seven years, it hasn’t been until recently that collectors have made an effort to match them up.
“But in the last two or three years, people started to discover the error. The community, through social media, has been able to connect — and people have been able to pair up their notes in a lot of ways,” Hawk said. “The last pairing I think I saw sold for about $6,000.”
So far, only nine pairs with matching serial numbers have been found.
The personal finance site Wealthy Nickel shared that there are three indicators to look for the dollar bills.
This includes the series date reading “Series 2013,” the bills having a “B” Federal Reserve Seal above their serial number, and the serial number ending with an “*” and falling between B00000001* – B00250000* or B03200001*-B09600000*.
If you have one of these bills, Hawk said there are ways to find those who could be looking for the bills, potentially earning you a big payday.
“You can find outlets where people are collecting the data, so you can see if notes are out there already,” he said. “If someone’s already reported this number, you might be able to pair up with someone looking for this number. They may be willing to pay a big premium for that.”