How to Tell If You Have Dollar Bills Worth Money - 2024

You can tell if your dollar bills are worth money by checking your bill’s serial number. Low, high, repeating, solid, consecutive, doubles, and stars in serial numbers are a few details  to look out for when determining if your dollar bills are more valuable than their face value.

There were about 2.26 trillion one-dollar bills in circulation as of 2022. Out of that massive number,  millions of those bills could be worth more than their face value. Wondering whether any of your dollar bills might be worth more than face value? Reach out to Coinfully for an appraisal In the meantime, read on to learn what makes a dollar bill worth money.

What Makes A Dollar Bill Valuable?

The determining factor that can make your dollar bills valuable are their serial numbers.

All serial numbers on bills are unique, but there are some stand-out serial numbers that make your dollar bills desirable and worth money.

A few of the serial number variations that can make your dollar bills valuable are:

• Low Serial Numbers: This includes any serial numbers below 00001000.
• High Serial Numbers: This includes any serial numbers above 99999900.
• Flippers: These serial numbers read the same upside down and right side up (mostly made of 0’s, 6’s, and 9’s and sometimes 8’s or 1’s).
• Star Notes: These serial numbers end in a star and signify that there was a printing error during production and the bills had to be reprinted.
• Repeaters: Serial numbers with repeaters have blocks with the same numbers repeating, like 73273273.
• Super Repeaters: These serial numbers are like repeaters, but with only two numbers repeating, like 59595959.
• Solids (or near solids): Serial numbers where every digit (or almost every digit) is the same number.
• Binary Bills: These serial numbers are made up of only two different digits in any order.
• Trinary Bills: These serial numbers are made up of three different digits in any order
• Ladders – ladders have serial numbers completely in order, either ascending or descending.
• Radars: Radar serial numbers are like palindromes and are the same when read forward or backward.
• Consecutive:or this type of serial number, you will need two bills with serial numbers one after the other.
• Doubles: Serial numbers with two of the same digits next to each other are digits, you can have more than one set of doubles in the same serial number all the way up to Quad Doubles.
• Bookends: If a serial number on any bills you own has the same two or three numbers starting and ending it, it is a bookend serial number.

These valuable serial numbers are on dollar bills that you can find anywhere, so make sure to keep an eye out for any of these bills, especially if they are in good condition.

The Most Valuable Dollar Bill in History

The most valuable one-dollar bill was ​​an 1874 $1 United States Note that sold at auction for $26,400 through Stack’s Bowers.

On lists of single old bills worth money, the 1874 large sized dollar note is always the most valuable. Since these dollar notes are no longer in circulation, you might have better luck finding them in a collection of inherited currency than through spare change.

Current Dollar Bills Worth Thousands

Between 2014 and 2016, around 6.4 million one-dollar bills were printed that could be worth up to $150,000.

Due to a policy forbidding repeating the same serial number, every bill is supposed to have its own unique serial number. However, thanks to a printing error two batches of one-dollar bills (one from Washington D.C. in 2014 and the other from Fort Worth in 2016) were printed with the exact same serial number.

Here’s how to tell if you own one of these dollar bills:

• The date to the right of George Washington must read “Series 2013”
• The series number ends with a star
• The serial number has to be between B00000001 and B00250000 or B03200001 and B09600000

If you have any bills in your wallet that fit these parameters, start looking for the other one. You need a matching pair of these bills for them to be valuable. Matching pairs of these bills could be worth anywhere from $20,000 to $150,000.

Only nine pairs of these bills have been found, though there are still millions of pairs out there for people to find. Today, these rare one-dollar bills worth money can be found anywhere in the world.

Could Your One-Dollar Bill Be Worth Money?

Yes, your one-dollar bill could be worth more than its face value. While paper money is not as valuable as collectible coins, U.S. dollar bills can be worth money depending on their serial numbers.

Selling Your Dollar Bills

Most shops or currency collectors that buy and sell coins and legal tenders can buy any dollar bills you may own.

If you are wondering where to sell old dollar bills near you, the first place you should look for is any place in-person or online that sells or deals in coins. To make sure you are selling your coins for the right price, get an appraisal from a professional.

Appraising Your Dollar Bills

Before trying to sell your dollars, just like coins, get your bills appraised to have an expert tell you their value.

Your two options when getting an appraisal are online or in-person. For online appraisals, you will have to send in photos of whatever currency you wish to know more about and wait for a response. When you go to an in-person appraisal, you will have to take any valuable bills or coins to the appraisal location.

After your appraisal, you can look up where to sell rare dollar bills, or if you get an appraisal with Coinfully, you can sell them to the expert who appraised your collection. 

Coinfully will buy any of your bills or coins after either an online appraisal or at-home appraisal, where an expert will come to you and tell you how much your coins are worth.

Whether you decide on selling coins or bills online or in-person, all Coinfully appraisals are 100% free and with a zero-pressure guarantee. That means Coinfully  will not try to convince you to sell if you are not ready. The first goal at Coinfully is to make sure that you are well informed to make the right decision about your valuable coins and bills.

So, why wait? Reach out to Coinfully where an expert can tell you everything you want to know about your bills with an appraisal!