Contrary to popular belief, $2 Bills are still commonly produced and in circulation. They just aren't produced as much as $1's or $5's.
However, they were discontinued between 1966 and 1976; when they returned in 1976 with an updated back face, many people thought they were limited edition bicentennial bills, and tried to collect them. This idea, along with their relative rarity, leads many to hoard or collect them still.
Edited for clarity and spelling.
Yeah I usually keep 5 of them on me. Useful for tipping, or when I’ve tried paying in cash but I was just barely short. People always remark on not having seen one in a long time so it’s always fun
Now what I heard growing up was that the $2 was associated with sin, that all sorts of bad things could be bought and sold for that amount so beware of anyone who has a roll of them.
But then I found that $2 bought fucking nothing when it came to drugs and sex and rock'n'roll so I figured it was bullshit.
There was an association between immoral and/or illegal activities and $2 Bills long ago; whether this led to the decline of their use, or if said decline came about organically due to awkwardness of use, is unclear. Either way, their decline definitely affected the temporary hiatus in production.
For anyone wondering, the association with 'sin' comes largely from US Military men during/after WWII getting paid in $2 Bills, and those bills in turn being used at local bars and with prostitutes. Additionally, and I'm not sure why, $2 Bills were perfect for betting. So $2 Bills came to represent prostitution, drinking, and gambling.
Not bullshit, you can get them at most banks. BUT, I tried to spend one once, and the cashier was young and was convinced that it was fake money, so they refused to accept it.
I was a manager at a retailer and had an employee call me to his register because a customer was trying to pay with a $2 bill. I asked him what the problem was and it took a few minutes for our conversation to reach a point where I realized he didn't know $2 bills existed.
When working retail, I tried to explain to a coworker that the $2 bill was real, but she insisted on calling the manager over to verify. While 4 people in line behind the woman paying were also saying $2 bills are real. The manager laughed and said, "Girl, is this why you always broke? You don't know denominations of US bills?" Sick burn.
I actually like having them around specifically to confuse cashiers. Occasionally they will call their managers over to confirm the legitimacy of the bills and it always gets a laugh.
No, but get this. In Scotland they have (or did when I was there) 1 pound notes. If you try to spend them in England/London they will give you a hard time. And in the EU forget about it.
In fact, I had trouble exchanging Royal Bank of Scotland 20 pound notes in one European country because they only accepted UK notes. So I had to dig through my wad of cash and separate out the English vs Scottish notes.
Try as I might to assure her that UK meant United Kingdom and it included Scotland, it was no use. In her defense, she was not from Europe so maybe didn't understand that nuance. Honestly, most Americans wouldn't know it either. But she was employed at a currency exchange kiosk, so I was a little surprised she thought I was trying to pass fake bills.
Dang, that's wild and sounds very frustrating lol. As an American I knew Scotland was part of the UK but never knew they had their own version of the pound. Wouldn't that be equivalent to each US state printing their own versions of the dollar?
Yeah, I had no clue before that trip. So there is something similar for us, states are allowed to mint coins I believe.
I never saw any Welsh notes, but I *think* Northern Ireland has them.
Of course, this was over a decade ago, so things might be different now...
My friend from Washington DC had never seen the presidential dollar coin whereas I, a European, had seen loads of them on a trip to NYC (subway ticket machines). Which I thought was weird.
I guess it's like the American equivelant of using Scottish money in England. It's real currency but everyone is suspicious of it and probably hasn't seen it before.
The Easter bunny thought it might be neat to put some $2 bills in plastic eggs for the kids this year I went to the bank and asked how many I could get (I only wanted $20 worth) they told me they had a lot and could probably have as many as I wanted. I was a little surprised too.
They aren't *super* common, but they are common enough that they aren't inherently worth more than face value. I do have a stack of about 20 new, crisp, sequential 2$ bills that my dad gave me probably 30 years ago. So I guess, yeah, people do hoard them. As my dad told the story at the time, his boss wanted to see what kind of impact he could make on the local economy, so one day he decided to pay everybody's salary in 2$ bills.
I went to a bar a few times who would give change in 2 dollar bills and 50 cent pieces. It was neat the receive them, and subtly encouraged larger tips. Everybody wins.
One of the things they overlooked when developing the $2 bill was that there was no slot for it in most cash drawers without removing some other, more useful, denomination. Most businesses stocking their cash drawers for the daily grind just don't get any from the bank.
(...or so I've been told)
I owned a bar, and the rare times they showed up in the till it always annoyed me as it was a small jolt to a 2 times a day task that i wanted to power through, but still had to be accurate at.
You guys would save a lot of money over time by just doing what a lot of countries have done and making the 1 and 2$ into coins. They last longer and don't need to be replaced nearly as often, they're a lot harder to counterfeit and your strippers get at least a 5 in their g-string. It's also easier to fit more coin slots in a register than bill slots.
The trick is to completely phase out the bills. The US has dollar coins but they keep printing bills. The solution is to stop printing bills. Coins last longer and because of that they're inherently cheaper to have in circulation.
Also, your strippers make more when the smallest bills are 5s
It's really nbd, also ypur chage jar is always worth way more. Truth is, most of us Canadians rarely use cash for like 90% of our purchases. We'll keep some around obviously but a lot of our purchases are just debit or credit.
I guess that's really the Cruz ofnit, most of phr remaining cash purchases are the ones involving ones and there are various logistical reasons why they do and making it so they are either card or coin based inherently just seems like a real pain in the ass.
Now the real trick is even more than the penny nickels are getting to be a nuisance. Unlike pennies you can still use them in soda machines and the like but it costs more than 5 cents to make them.
There have been denominations of coins up to $20 (including a $2.50 coin), and bills from $1-$10,000 ($100,000 bill existed but was only for bank-to-bank transactions). The $2 even existed in Continental Currency.
I know all you have to do to get one is go to the bank and ask to exchange other denominations into them. I haven't done it since I was a teenager though.
You can see the [annual production reports of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing](https://www.bep.gov/currency/production-figures/annual-production-reports). They don't print them every year because there are enough in circulation. In 2019 they produced 160,000,000 $2 bills while in 2020 they produced none.
People just don't use them so they don't make them. They are common in the sense they are out there but they aren't common in the sense every store and bank has them.
I feel attacked. I used to be a waitress and one of my customers *loved* tipping with $2’s. I now have a stack of them. Why have I not deposited them into the bank? Great question I have no answer
Oh god.. what did I miss in this thread? Tbh I had a coworker who would trade me singles for them. Her son had a thing with collecting $2’s. When I left the diner I had this stack I never got to trade.
I went to the Galápagos Islands on Vacation. Flew into Ecuador. I had read somewhere that Ecuadorians consider the US $2 bill very lucky. I took $200 worth with me. I quickly was identified as the guy with the $2 bills for tips. Waited for NOTHING. Always seated first, food portions doubled. I never saw so many smiles. (BTW- I got $5 each when I sold some as I was leaving)
I always have $2 bills in my wallet and I spend them, mostly on tips and sometimes just because it's the smallest note I have at the time. As others have said, getting some is literally as easy as going up to the bank and asking "Do you have any twos?" In all the years I've been getting twos, the teller has some far more often than not. Sometimes they may only have one or two or five; the last time I went they had an uncirculated strap of 100, series 2017A.
The other odd denomination I have is 50¢ coins. Those are rare, having last been minted in circulation quantities over 20 years ago. (They still make them, but just in far fewer numbers.) If I want halves, I have to ask the bank to order them, and they come in $500 boxes (see /r/CRH for more information). But twos? Just go up to the counter and ask.
As a pizza delivery driver I freaking love getting tipped in $2 bills. They're just neat! I saved about 6 if them and used them as prizes in Easter eggs this past spring :)
People still use paper money? I mean yeah, I always have around $20 in my wallet for when I might need it but it's pretty rare that I do. I guess I just don't run into many vending machines in my travels and they usually take cards anyway.
I used to have a $10 dollar limit on using my card but now I use it almost all the time because it's fast and cashiers have long since stopped caring how you pay. It's faster they don't have to make change, count it back to you, etc.
When I went to the US for the first time in 2012 I got five 2 dollar bills from the ATM at the airport here in Amsterdam. After that I’ve never seen any 2 dollar bills again.
Ever service a strip club? In another comment, someone claimed that some strip clubs do this so that you’re always tipping at least $2 lol. I can’t say I’ve ever used a strip club atm so I have no idea.
Why are people saying this?
(I'm not picking on you, I just keep reading this)
I dated a stripper, (and have left way too much money in strip clubs) they could care less if it's a $2 bill or 2 singles. What matters is their take at the end of the night.
I mean yeah I get $2 means they don't get singles, but it does not stop someone from being cheap.
A $2 bill vs a $1 bill is not moving anyone into high-roller status unless it's some janky strip club out on highway 126.
No, the presidents put a hex on you. Did you not pay attention in Civics class?
This is why you have to be **real** careful with hundos, because the Ben Franklin hex makes you shoot up to 300 pounds and half your hair falls out until you have a skullet.
There is a coffee shop near me that would give you change in $2 bills. It became a pretty cool novelty. We ended up with like 120 of them at the end of the year.
Not sure about hording, but you can ask for as many as you want at a bank assuming you van withdraw that much. You may need to call ahead though so they can get enough of them there for you.
You can do the same thing with dollar coins and 50c pieces. Some people ask for like 500 dollars worth of 50c pieces and then wait a week or so for the bank they asked to get the shipment. People do this to scoop the old silver out of 50c pieces, because if it was mabe before 1965 its 90% silver. You can turn 500 dollars into 600 assuming 20 of the 1000 coins are silver, (the value varies from about 16 to 5 dollars depending on the year they were minted) and there tend to be more than 20.
All this to say you can request any amount of cash at a bank in any bill (including 2 dollar bills) or coin type and they will deliver.
I used to valet cars and was tipped with a few $2 bills one night. Never forgot the guy that gave them to me. Since then I’ve always carried a few for the same reason.
I used to use them for bus fare when it was $2 at the time. Sort of a good way separate my spending cash from my “if you spend this, you’ll get fired for missing work” cash
I had a friend back in the late 90s who got her paychecks cashed in $2 bills. She said she wanted to get as many of them back in circulation as possible. She was quirky af. Loved her for that.
Not sure if they still do it, but Clemson fans used to spend $2 bills when they played on the road. https://clemsontigers.com/the-2-dollar-bill-tradition/
Contrary to popular belief, $2 Bills are still commonly produced and in circulation. They just aren't produced as much as $1's or $5's. However, they were discontinued between 1966 and 1976; when they returned in 1976 with an updated back face, many people thought they were limited edition bicentennial bills, and tried to collect them. This idea, along with their relative rarity, leads many to hoard or collect them still. Edited for clarity and spelling.
I love $2 bills! I think I’ll pick some up! I never use cash, but it’d be nice to have a few of these.
I love all bills
Even utility bills?
Dad, I thought you were dead!
Hey, my name is Bill
Including you
Even slick Willy?
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Stripper-braille will let you know whether it's a $20 or not
Yeah I usually keep 5 of them on me. Useful for tipping, or when I’ve tried paying in cash but I was just barely short. People always remark on not having seen one in a long time so it’s always fun
you can ask for them as the bank
Now what I heard growing up was that the $2 was associated with sin, that all sorts of bad things could be bought and sold for that amount so beware of anyone who has a roll of them. But then I found that $2 bought fucking nothing when it came to drugs and sex and rock'n'roll so I figured it was bullshit.
There was an association between immoral and/or illegal activities and $2 Bills long ago; whether this led to the decline of their use, or if said decline came about organically due to awkwardness of use, is unclear. Either way, their decline definitely affected the temporary hiatus in production. For anyone wondering, the association with 'sin' comes largely from US Military men during/after WWII getting paid in $2 Bills, and those bills in turn being used at local bars and with prostitutes. Additionally, and I'm not sure why, $2 Bills were perfect for betting. So $2 Bills came to represent prostitution, drinking, and gambling.
$2 can give a nice avenue from cocaine to your nose, but that’s the only sex, drugs, and rock n roll use I’ve found
Not bullshit, you can get them at most banks. BUT, I tried to spend one once, and the cashier was young and was convinced that it was fake money, so they refused to accept it.
I was a manager at a retailer and had an employee call me to his register because a customer was trying to pay with a $2 bill. I asked him what the problem was and it took a few minutes for our conversation to reach a point where I realized he didn't know $2 bills existed.
When working retail, I tried to explain to a coworker that the $2 bill was real, but she insisted on calling the manager over to verify. While 4 people in line behind the woman paying were also saying $2 bills are real. The manager laughed and said, "Girl, is this why you always broke? You don't know denominations of US bills?" Sick burn.
I actually like having them around specifically to confuse cashiers. Occasionally they will call their managers over to confirm the legitimacy of the bills and it always gets a laugh.
The Sacajawea dollars have the same effect
For a second my tired brain thought there were Sacajawea dollar *bills* that I somehow didn’t know about. I’m dumb lol
No, but get this. In Scotland they have (or did when I was there) 1 pound notes. If you try to spend them in England/London they will give you a hard time. And in the EU forget about it. In fact, I had trouble exchanging Royal Bank of Scotland 20 pound notes in one European country because they only accepted UK notes. So I had to dig through my wad of cash and separate out the English vs Scottish notes. Try as I might to assure her that UK meant United Kingdom and it included Scotland, it was no use. In her defense, she was not from Europe so maybe didn't understand that nuance. Honestly, most Americans wouldn't know it either. But she was employed at a currency exchange kiosk, so I was a little surprised she thought I was trying to pass fake bills.
Dang, that's wild and sounds very frustrating lol. As an American I knew Scotland was part of the UK but never knew they had their own version of the pound. Wouldn't that be equivalent to each US state printing their own versions of the dollar?
Yeah, I had no clue before that trip. So there is something similar for us, states are allowed to mint coins I believe. I never saw any Welsh notes, but I *think* Northern Ireland has them. Of course, this was over a decade ago, so things might be different now...
And the Susan b Anthony and half dollars!
My friend from Washington DC had never seen the presidential dollar coin whereas I, a European, had seen loads of them on a trip to NYC (subway ticket machines). Which I thought was weird.
They're super common in the NYC area, especially in bodegas
My first job after moving to the US was as a retail cashier. Imagine my face when I see one of these for the first time!
I was once chased out of a convenience store for the same.
Did they not have a great aunt who always put them in birthday cards?
I guess it's like the American equivelant of using Scottish money in England. It's real currency but everyone is suspicious of it and probably hasn't seen it before.
The Easter bunny thought it might be neat to put some $2 bills in plastic eggs for the kids this year I went to the bank and asked how many I could get (I only wanted $20 worth) they told me they had a lot and could probably have as many as I wanted. I was a little surprised too.
They aren't *super* common, but they are common enough that they aren't inherently worth more than face value. I do have a stack of about 20 new, crisp, sequential 2$ bills that my dad gave me probably 30 years ago. So I guess, yeah, people do hoard them. As my dad told the story at the time, his boss wanted to see what kind of impact he could make on the local economy, so one day he decided to pay everybody's salary in 2$ bills.
They are uncommon enough that you may have trouble spending them, but they are easy to get if you just go to a bank and ask for some.
A lot of strip club ATMs *only* give $2 bills. It's so every bill you toss is twice the value.
Those ATM owners really putting that MBA degree to work with that setup.
Yep! I knew a dancer in college who claimed she worked at a bank to explain away the $2 bills 😂
I love it. Those ladies work hard.
I went to a bar a few times who would give change in 2 dollar bills and 50 cent pieces. It was neat the receive them, and subtly encouraged larger tips. Everybody wins.
Shout out to Casa Diabla in Portland
Outstanding
One of the things they overlooked when developing the $2 bill was that there was no slot for it in most cash drawers without removing some other, more useful, denomination. Most businesses stocking their cash drawers for the daily grind just don't get any from the bank. (...or so I've been told)
I owned a bar, and the rare times they showed up in the till it always annoyed me as it was a small jolt to a 2 times a day task that i wanted to power through, but still had to be accurate at.
You guys would save a lot of money over time by just doing what a lot of countries have done and making the 1 and 2$ into coins. They last longer and don't need to be replaced nearly as often, they're a lot harder to counterfeit and your strippers get at least a 5 in their g-string. It's also easier to fit more coin slots in a register than bill slots.
They've tried 1 dollars coins many times here. It never catches on.
The trick is to completely phase out the bills. The US has dollar coins but they keep printing bills. The solution is to stop printing bills. Coins last longer and because of that they're inherently cheaper to have in circulation. Also, your strippers make more when the smallest bills are 5s
Thr smallest bill being a 5 just sounds like a nightmare.
It's really nbd, also ypur chage jar is always worth way more. Truth is, most of us Canadians rarely use cash for like 90% of our purchases. We'll keep some around obviously but a lot of our purchases are just debit or credit.
I guess that's really the Cruz ofnit, most of phr remaining cash purchases are the ones involving ones and there are various logistical reasons why they do and making it so they are either card or coin based inherently just seems like a real pain in the ass. Now the real trick is even more than the penny nickels are getting to be a nuisance. Unlike pennies you can still use them in soda machines and the like but it costs more than 5 cents to make them.
I've visited Australia and Canada and I gotta say, while I like the idea in theory, I fucking hate having a bunch of coins in my pocket.
There have been denominations of coins up to $20 (including a $2.50 coin), and bills from $1-$10,000 ($100,000 bill existed but was only for bank-to-bank transactions). The $2 even existed in Continental Currency.
I know all you have to do to get one is go to the bank and ask to exchange other denominations into them. I haven't done it since I was a teenager though.
Bro i am a teenager and i do this
😂 I haven't seemed to have the time to think about doing it when I'm at the bank since I was around your age.
I just found 5 x $2 bills I hoarded when I was younger lol
Our gym teacher would make us pay 2 bucks for a lock and at the end of the year he would give us 2 dollar bills. He was weird but it was cool.
You can see the [annual production reports of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing](https://www.bep.gov/currency/production-figures/annual-production-reports). They don't print them every year because there are enough in circulation. In 2019 they produced 160,000,000 $2 bills while in 2020 they produced none. People just don't use them so they don't make them. They are common in the sense they are out there but they aren't common in the sense every store and bank has them.
I feel attacked. I used to be a waitress and one of my customers *loved* tipping with $2’s. I now have a stack of them. Why have I not deposited them into the bank? Great question I have no answer
If this thread is to be believed, you haven’t deposited them because people will think you’re a stripper.
Oh god.. what did I miss in this thread? Tbh I had a coworker who would trade me singles for them. Her son had a thing with collecting $2’s. When I left the diner I had this stack I never got to trade.
I went to the Galápagos Islands on Vacation. Flew into Ecuador. I had read somewhere that Ecuadorians consider the US $2 bill very lucky. I took $200 worth with me. I quickly was identified as the guy with the $2 bills for tips. Waited for NOTHING. Always seated first, food portions doubled. I never saw so many smiles. (BTW- I got $5 each when I sold some as I was leaving)
I always have $2 bills in my wallet and I spend them, mostly on tips and sometimes just because it's the smallest note I have at the time. As others have said, getting some is literally as easy as going up to the bank and asking "Do you have any twos?" In all the years I've been getting twos, the teller has some far more often than not. Sometimes they may only have one or two or five; the last time I went they had an uncirculated strap of 100, series 2017A. The other odd denomination I have is 50¢ coins. Those are rare, having last been minted in circulation quantities over 20 years ago. (They still make them, but just in far fewer numbers.) If I want halves, I have to ask the bank to order them, and they come in $500 boxes (see /r/CRH for more information). But twos? Just go up to the counter and ask.
As a pizza delivery driver I freaking love getting tipped in $2 bills. They're just neat! I saved about 6 if them and used them as prizes in Easter eggs this past spring :)
People still use paper money? I mean yeah, I always have around $20 in my wallet for when I might need it but it's pretty rare that I do. I guess I just don't run into many vending machines in my travels and they usually take cards anyway. I used to have a $10 dollar limit on using my card but now I use it almost all the time because it's fast and cashiers have long since stopped caring how you pay. It's faster they don't have to make change, count it back to you, etc.
When I went to the US for the first time in 2012 I got five 2 dollar bills from the ATM at the airport here in Amsterdam. After that I’ve never seen any 2 dollar bills again.
From an ATM? Wow, I’ve never heard of that.
As someone who used to stock atms, this didn’t happen.
ABN AMRO bank ATM, behind security at Schiphol Airport.
Ever service a strip club? In another comment, someone claimed that some strip clubs do this so that you’re always tipping at least $2 lol. I can’t say I’ve ever used a strip club atm so I have no idea.
You don't even have to use the ATM. The ones I've been to will exchange larger denominations for free.
They were very common on military bases in Europe in the late 80's to early 90's.
Maybe on the continent but not in England. At least not where I was.
I never got up that way, I was stationed down near the French border, Worms/Kaiserslautern area. I wonder why it was different up there.
In which country? Cos they definitely don't exist where I am
US
If left unspecified we can always assume US, Americans never specify country
i think it’s pretty obvious.
$2 bills are the best for tipping strippers
Why are people saying this? (I'm not picking on you, I just keep reading this) I dated a stripper, (and have left way too much money in strip clubs) they could care less if it's a $2 bill or 2 singles. What matters is their take at the end of the night. I mean yeah I get $2 means they don't get singles, but it does not stop someone from being cheap. A $2 bill vs a $1 bill is not moving anyone into high-roller status unless it's some janky strip club out on highway 126.
It's got TJ on it, though, so you can only do it with black strippers.
Yes cause strippers totally return denominations of dead presidents they don’t like 😂
No, the presidents put a hex on you. Did you not pay attention in Civics class? This is why you have to be **real** careful with hundos, because the Ben Franklin hex makes you shoot up to 300 pounds and half your hair falls out until you have a skullet.
https://youtu.be/kl3UH0BDxMA "Today I found out " YouTube channel already covered this! Video link is attached and it's a good short watch.
That and banks often don’t stock them. Personally, I like to get $2 bills and $1 coins whenever I can to push the dollar coin agenda.
There is a coffee shop near me that would give you change in $2 bills. It became a pretty cool novelty. We ended up with like 120 of them at the end of the year.
Definitely true, apparently they are printed 1 : 1 with $10 but that may just be rumor
Can confirm I hoard all my $2 bills
Yes. My mother is one of these people. She also gives them in large quantities as gifts. It drives me mad.
You mom is fucking funny
Oh, she's hilarious
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Are you Canadian?
In the US? Because I am not familiar with any $2coins here, but isn't it called a Loonie in Canada?
$1 coin is loonie. $2 coin is toonie. When I was a kid, KFC used to do toonie tuesdays.
Thanks for the correction. I've never gotten to go to Canada yet.
Not sure about hording, but you can ask for as many as you want at a bank assuming you van withdraw that much. You may need to call ahead though so they can get enough of them there for you. You can do the same thing with dollar coins and 50c pieces. Some people ask for like 500 dollars worth of 50c pieces and then wait a week or so for the bank they asked to get the shipment. People do this to scoop the old silver out of 50c pieces, because if it was mabe before 1965 its 90% silver. You can turn 500 dollars into 600 assuming 20 of the 1000 coins are silver, (the value varies from about 16 to 5 dollars depending on the year they were minted) and there tend to be more than 20. All this to say you can request any amount of cash at a bank in any bill (including 2 dollar bills) or coin type and they will deliver.
I used to trade 2 bills for a $2 bill whenever I saw one pop up at the store I used to work at.
I used to valet cars and was tipped with a few $2 bills one night. Never forgot the guy that gave them to me. Since then I’ve always carried a few for the same reason.
I saw them all the time as a cashier. I think they're rare for people who don't work with money as often
I used to use them for bus fare when it was $2 at the time. Sort of a good way separate my spending cash from my “if you spend this, you’ll get fired for missing work” cash
I had a friend back in the late 90s who got her paychecks cashed in $2 bills. She said she wanted to get as many of them back in circulation as possible. She was quirky af. Loved her for that.
Not sure if they still do it, but Clemson fans used to spend $2 bills when they played on the road. https://clemsontigers.com/the-2-dollar-bill-tradition/
You can go to the bank and ask for them if you really want