Fancy serial numbers: Unloading your spenders

If you hunt for fancy serial numbers on dollar bills, the large majority of them will be “spenders,” also known as bills with ordinary serial numbers. Here are some ways to unload them if you're not a big cash person …

One thing is true with any treasure-hunting endeavor: You've got to pick through a lot of things that aren't treasure.

Treasure-hunting is 0.1% treasure, and 99.9% hunt.

Fancy serial numbers are fancy because they're rare

I've gone through upwards of $1,000 in $1 bills, looking for fancy serial numbers. I use the strategies that I've outlined in my ebook Fancy Serial Numbers for Fun and Profit to research, price, and try to sell them.

“Yeah, spend that one”

Some time ago I was in a coin shop. The guy in front of me was trying to sell his coins to the dealer, who was looking them over.

More than once, the dealer got to one and told the man, “Yeah, spend that one.” Meaning, it wasn't worth any more than face value.

In going through a bunch of dollar bills, I'm left with … a pile of dollar bills with entirely, utterly ordinary serial numbers.

A whole bunch of “spenders.”

Not biting the hand that feeds me

Some of my friends who do similar treasure-hunting have no reservations at all about redepositing their spenders back into their bank accounts.

Banks need to have deposits in checking and savings accounts, but they make their money in loans. These kinds of transactions aren't money-makers for the banks; they're money-losers.

If I were a teller, this would get old pretty quickly. If I were a bank manager, I'd be tempted to change my policy or assess a fee for handling a high volume of cash, because this kind of thing is a cost to the bank. (This happened to one of my friends. “Yeah, they're charging $12 a box for coins now!”)

So … I don't do this, almost to a fault. (At one point I had withdrawn nearly $1,000 worth of half dollars looking for silver ones. There wasn't a single silver half in the entire lot. I had spent down to about $600 before I gave up and redeposited the rest of them. I apologized to the teller for doing it.)

How to unload them without annoying the tellers

If you already use cash as your primary means of payment, then having a lot of $1 bills really isn't that much of a problem. Just buy stuff as you usually do!

But if you pay with debit card or credit card, then it may be a bit tougher to spend a bunch of ones down.

Here are a few ideas how to unload you spenders without getting blacklisted by your tellers:

• Yard sales. Cash is king at yard sales. But you can also be someone's hero by arriving just in time with a (literal) fistful of dollars, especially if everyone who's bought from them up to that point has had nothing but fives, tens, and twenties.
• Coffee club. Most of the coffee clubs, coffee pools, etc., at work have a can for collecting the money as people drink. Trade out your dollars for anything else that's in there.
• Concession stands. I missed my opportunity at my daughter's swim meet. The people working behind the counter we so happy to get my $1 bills! I'll have to remember to make them much happier next time. 😉
• Tips. At my last trip to Firebird's I tipped completely in $1 bills. I've had people tell me that tipping in coins isn't really classy but I don't think $1 bills are all that bad, as long as the amount is right.
• Spend them on small purchases. This is a tad kinder to merchants even if they will take credit cards for a small purchase, because it saves them money on merchant fees.
• Keep a few in a safe place. It's not a bad idea to have some cash on hand. Ones aren't the most convenient, but they will work in a pinch.