What fancy serial numbers are worth collecting?

• What a bill is worth to you is different from what the same bill is worth to someone else.
• If you're collecting bills, what the bill is worth to someone else doesn't matter.
• Decide what the goal of your collection is, and use that to guide what you add or remove from your collection, and at what price.

So you got a dollar bill in your change.

You glanced at the serial number, and saw that it started with four 7's. Something like 77771259.

“Cool!” you think. You get home and put the bill in a drawer because hey, it's only a buck and it's neat!

Congratulations! You just started a fancy serial number collection.

What is a fancy serial number bill worth?

Then you ask somebody – maybe me, or maybe another casual collector, or maybe a dealer – what this newest bill in your collection is worth.

You already think the bill is cool. If you didn't, it never would have left your wallet to go into your drawer for safe-keeping.

You suspect that it's worth more than face value, but you don't know how much. Five bucks, maybe.

Depending on who you ask, the response could be any of the following:

• “Might be worth a couple of bucks to the right person.”
• “Cool number! Spend or keep as you please.”
• “Spender.” (Implying that it's worth a dollar but no more.)
• “Really? That's nothing special.”
• “One hundred BILLION dollars” (complete with Dr. Evil's lip-pinky)

Mostly discouraging responses. Some of them are even a bit mean. But all of them fall well short of $5.

For someone just getting excited about this hobby, it can be disheartening. It puts a damper on the joy of finding these bills.

Assessments of value are opinions

When someone tells you what a bill is worth, it's always an opinion, and often it's what it's worth to them.

(If money changes hands, then that sets value for the bill. Talking about the value, listing it for sale, offering to buy the bill, counter-offering, etc., don't.)

You could list your bill on eBay for $5 and someone could offer you $3. It's worth that amount to them.

A dealer may know that they could get $4 for it within a week or two, and would buy it for $1.50 from you. To them, it's worth buying from you at a discount to its likely sales value.

And an experienced collector whose collection consists mainly of graded, high-end bills that they've assembled over decades, wouldn't give the bill a second glance for their collection. To this person, it's worth a dollar, and no more.

You'll get as many opinions of value as the number of people you talk to.

Value vs. passion

Now that you have other opinions of value for your 77771259 … what now?

You kept the bill because you thought it was cool. It brought a smile to you at some level.

If an experienced collector says it's worth face vale, does it make the bill less cool to you?

Even if someone goes so far as to say that your bill sucks … does it make it less cool to you?

(Inversely, if someone says your bill is worth $25, does it make it more cool to you?)

It shouldn't matter.

This is your interest, and your collection.

Don't let someone's yuck take the enjoyment out of your yum. No one's got time for that.

Where value comes in

This isn't to say that value plays no part in a collection:

Every bill in your collection is in physical form and not earning money for you. Cash in your home doesn't earn interest. You can't take your collection to the bank, deposit it, and expect access to it.

Every bill that you found in the wild (for face value) is in your collection and not earning money for you (see above).

Every bill that you bought for more than face value from a private sale, off of eBay, etc., also has a sunk cost to it. If you spend $10 to get $1, you're down $9 until you sell it again. (If you spend the bill at the grocery store, you're definitely down $9.)

So, there's a cost to holding a collection of fancy serial numbers, because it's an allocation of your resources. Those resources can't be used for something else.

But that's true of any collection: fancy serial numbers, error notes, coins, Smurf figurines, Pez dispensers, cars.

Feeding your collection

Let's get back to the title: “What fancy serial numbers are worth collecting?”

Based on the above discussion, I'd turn the question back to you:

“What fancy serial numbers do you want to start collecting?”

Only you can answer that. Only you know what sings to you. It's your collection.

Then the next question, once you have an idea of what you want to collect, is this:

“How much time and money are you willing to dedicate to your collection?”

Some bills will be easy and inexpensive to acquire. Others will be very difficult and very expensive to acquire if you can acquire them at all.

Also, what you want to collect, and what you're able to collect, will change over time. Your tastes and monetary resources change with time.

How to proceed

The biggest thing is to have fun!

If it's not fun, why are you collecting?

If you find a bill that you think is cool, keep it! It brings you joy.

As you collect cool bills, learn about them. Browse eBay with the search term “fancy serial number” and see what the market is. That will give you an idea of what people are asking. If you look at sold auctions, you'll get a feel for what willing buyers will pay.

Join the Cool Serial Facebook group if you haven't already, and say hi! We have beginning collectors as well as experienced collectors and dealers.

Seek opinions but again, they're just opinions. The fact that you think a bill is worth keeping is all that matters, really.

As you learn more, you'll get a feel for the market, and you'll meet other sellers and traders. Knowledge is power, so you'll be able to make good purchase and selling decisions should things progress to that.

Enjoy! I look forward to hearing about what you find!