You Could Have $150k In Your Pocket

If you have any $1 bills in your wallet or under your couch, think twice before using them. It is because currency collectors in the U.S. are willing to pay up to $150,000 for some versions of the dollar bill with a particular printing error. According to Wealthynickel.com, some dollar bills printed in 2014 and 2016 feature a mistake from the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing that could make them worth $150,000 by collectors. According to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, 6.4 million banknotes were printed with this error in 2014 and 2016. One batch was issued by the federal bank in New York, and the second was issued in Washington, D.C., though at this point, the bills could be anywhere in the world.

How To Identify Bills Worth Up to $150,000

There are three things you need to know to identify the misprinted bills that could be worth a small fortune:

• The series date is near the photograph of George Washington, which must read “Series 2013.”
• The bill must have a “B” Federal Reserve Seal above the serial number
• The serial number must end with a star (*) and fall between B00000001* – B00250000* or B03200001*-B09600000*

What To Do If You’re the Lucky Owner of One of the Misprinted Bills

If you are lucky enough to stumble across one of these $1 bills in your wallet, you are one step closer to cashing in. But the value of this particular misprint is in pairing it to the other bill with a matching serial number.

So far, 37 complete pairs have been identified. However, the Zegers/Winograd Project was established to catalog all the bills found and facilitate buying or selling to create a matching pair. The project identified over 10,000 bills, listing the current owner and serial number.

In 2021, the collectors behind the Zegers/Winograd Project stepped down, shutting down the effort. However, a new collector stepped up to help owners of misprinted star note bills find a matching pair. You can submit your serial number to Project 2013B and see if there is a match in the current database, which has grown to over 36,000 serial numbers.

None of the collectors with a matching pair have yet to be willing to sell, but experts estimate that pairs that have been matched and graded would sell for between $20,000 and $150,000, depending on the condition and serial number.