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Uncut Currency

usmint.gov

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Re: Uncut Currency

#211

Post by joering2 »

Interesting to see US Mint site on the HN. Few interesting facts from someone who is collecting US currency for 20 years:

- these are great gift items for your rich friends or businessmen. The $1 sheet does come with only slight overcharge and everyone I gifted ended up hanging it in their office wall. Its a great conversation starter because majority of people do not know US dollars are produced in sheets nor that civilians can easily and legally purchase them off the US mint site.

- on the downside I almost missed my international flight because TSA agent could not comprehend that this is not fake home-printed sheet of $100. The new $100s have the famous security strip engraved and I would imagine putting large number thru airport security machine will tip it as attempt to smuggle large amount of US currency (you supposed to report anything over $10,000 in cash (whichever currency) when you enter or leave US border). So the TSA got warning on their screen and his eyes almost popped out when he unroll a sheet of 16 x $100 bills on one sheet of paper. Other travelers had fun seeing it too. Its only that his supervisor let me through quickly because he said a month ago there was some money summit in NYC and he got plenty of people going back and forth with these sheets.

- I think everyone should order a single $1 sheet to have on their wall as it is a great conversation starter.

Re: Uncut Currency

#212

Post by scarface_74 »

egypturnash wrote: post #199
scarface_74 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you use a debit card, the amount is immediately deducted from your checking account and you can check to see how much you have left by logging into your account.

Yes, but do you do this every time you take the card out?

I do this once per day. I have been doing it since the mid 90s before my bank had a website and you used a propriety money management program (forgot the name of it) that would dial into the bank and download posted transactions.

Back then, there was a two to three day delay.

Re: Uncut Currency

#213

Post by nlh »

uneekname wrote: post #188
nlh wrote: post #154

(Professional coin & currency nerd here) Fun fact about these — when the treasury first issued these, many people decided to cut them into odd off-center pieces and sell the resulting notes as miscut errors. Once that started happening, the treasury (BEP to be specific) very quickly changed the serial numbers so they’re all very recognizable as having come from an uncut sheet. I didn’t check the latest for all denomi…

...and now that Ebay listing says "477 viewed in the last 24 hours!"

Hahah up to 721 now. That guy must think he hit the jackpot! :)

Re: Uncut Currency

#214

Post by frankthedog »

neilv wrote: post #11

Steve Wozniak (the Apple cofounder) famously bought sheets of $2 bills, and had a printer perforate and gum them into pads. So he could literally tear off $2 bills, in front of people who might not even know it was real currency, to pay them. https://web.archive.org/web/20180311084811/http://archive.wo...

I once found a pad of tear off $2 on the ground of the departures drop off at O’hare airport. I thought it was a novelty initially but after closer inspection found the bills to be real. It’s been a 20 year mystery to me how that came to be since I’ve never seen anything like it since. Now I’m wondering if I found Woz’s pad.

That would be quite interesting because when I was very young I crank called him after finding his number online. He collects phone numbers with repeating digits and mine has 6 repeated numbers. I guess he found my number peculiar and picked up! In my young and starstruck state I panicked and hung up. How coincidental to have potentially two obscure path crossings with the Woz.

Re: Uncut Currency

#215

Post by scarface_74 »

fragmede wrote: post #210
scarface_74 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you use a debit card, the amount is immediately deducted from your checking account and you can check to see how much you have left by logging into your account.

That's true, but totally dismissive of what works and doesn't work for some people. A number in some app (that I annoyingly have to 2fa into) which I have to check on a debit card balance isn't at all helpful if you don't actually check it. For the obsessive smartphone app checker, I'm sure it works, but ask all your (close) friends what their current credit card balance is. I bet no one is closer than $100 and some…

My 2FA is my face…

So the people who are too lazy to check their app are okay with going to an ATM?

If I start overspending, I get alerts both when my balance gets low and when money is deducted from my savings account used as overdraft.

I rarely get to that point and even when I do, I catch it before the offending transaction posts.

Re: Uncut Currency

#216

Post by scarface_74 »

inetknght wrote: post #198
aftbit wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use cash because it doesn't require batteries, and because my cell phone won't let me use Google Pay, as it's running a custom OS (before that, was rooted) so I'm obviously untrustworthy. I do use a credit card pretty often too, but I always have a little cash on me and I use it at least weekly.

> I use cash because it doesn't require batteries > my cell phone ... running a custom OS Both very good points. Thank you for speaking up :)

A credit card or debit card doesn’t require batteries either…

Re: Uncut Currency

#217

Post by Edman274 »

Aeolun wrote: post #45
sschueller wrote: post #32

Why is the US one of the few countries that can't keep a consistent design across their bills and still does not have a way for blind people to identify which note they have. They are all the same size and have no embossed markings.

The thing I cannot fathom is why quarters are so huge, considering they’re nearly valueless. Then you need whole stacks of $1 bills to pay anything relevant. I find both constantly cluttering up my wallet.

Quarters and dimes used to be made out of silver so a quarter had to be 2.5x the volume of a quarter so their metal values matched their face values ratios.

> I find both constantly cluttering up my wallet.

The majority of Americans do not have an ongoing problem of having too much cash in their wallet, even if you consider single dollars to be practically irrelevant. Most people would rather have their money in aggregate take up an inconvenient amount of space rather than having there be a risk of losing it because it's so physically small.

Re: Uncut Currency

#218

Post by 9dev »

fragmede wrote: post #187
inetknght wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question is why are you using cash? I use cash because it contributes to the local neighborhood economy more than not using cash. I use cash because I do not want to risk a banking app being broken by a non-banking app. I use cash because I do not trust banking apps to keep to themselves instead of infecting the whole device with spyware to "verify who you are". I use cash because not using cash charges extra (…

it's way easier (for some people) to go to the ATM once a month and then have a physical pile of money you're using, ams physically see how much you're spending and adjust habits. A digital card that looks the same all month when you pull it out of your wallet has no such quality and is a basically scam on certain kinds of people to get them to spend more money.

That is far too generalised for my taste. There are just as many people which tend to spend all the cash they have in their wallet because it isn’t on their account anymore, so it’s ”spent already anyway“, and vastly prefer keeping the tabs on their banking app, which provides a proper overview of their finances—no calculations and counting necessary. Maybe it’s just an age thing?

Re: Uncut Currency

#219

Post by scarface_74 »

trey-jones wrote: post #196
aftbit wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use cash because it doesn't require batteries, and because my cell phone won't let me use Google Pay, as it's running a custom OS (before that, was rooted) so I'm obviously untrustworthy. I do use a credit card pretty often too, but I always have a little cash on me and I use it at least weekly.

To pile on the battery issue, we had some very severe storms in my area that took down power for days and internet for weeks. Credit card processing was not possible for gas stations during that time period, but the pumps worked when the power came back on. The only way you could fill up at those stations was with cash. It doesn't happen every day, but it does happen, and perhaps more importantly could be made to hap…

And during the severe thunderstorms in Florida when everyone was coming to Orlando, places ran out of gas. We had an EV and charged at home.

Are you going to get an EV too? Yes we keep some cash because we travel a lot and use cash for tips.

Re: Uncut Currency

#220

Post by krunck »

scarface_74 wrote: post #186
coldpie wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are very few places in the US that up charge for credit card transactions I actually see it quite often here in the Twin Cities at small stores, bars, restaurants. A 1~3% discount for cash. > The merchant gets all except for a 2% fee when you don’t use cash. Cash handling also has cost - theft both from employees and outside actors - too. I've asked quite a few merchants that take both whether they have a pre…

> I actually see it quite often here in the Twin Cities at small stores, bars, restaurants. A 1~3% discount for cash. For reference, I have a card that gives me 3 points back for all restaurants and another card that gives me 2 points back for all other purchases. Doing the simplest thing possible and transferring those points to Delta for flights nets me 1.3% for each point meaning I will at least get 2.6% back on g…

People get benefits back from their cards because of the transaction fees. Thats where the money comes from, not from the bank accounts of Visa and Mastercard's CEOs.

Merchants are prevented by their contract from charging the transaction fee to the customer using the card. Therefore all customers pay the fees though increased merchant prices, even those using cash.

I resent paying for peoples credit card "benefits" - actually they're payoffs - every time I use cash.

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