Kids and older paper money, funny.

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I showed my step neice, who is about 10-11 years old some circulated 1973 $1 bills, some 1954 series $1, 2 and 5s and she thought they were totally worthless. She had never seen any of these types of bills and thought they were playmoney or fake money. I guess since they don't look like the current money we use, then they must be fake, right? LOL. It was hard to convince her it was real money. She also had a hard time believing that the U.S. and Canada had a $2 bill. Or that Canada had a $1000 bill.

Also about 3 months ago, I spent and circulated, bird series $2 bill at Canadian Tire. The girl just stared at the money, kept flipping it over in her hands for awhile, then said hold on. She left her cashier wicket and spoke to another girl in the next wicket, they both looked puzzled and shook their shoulders. Then she went and got an older manager and she asked him if this was legit, he said yup. But I could see she wasn't too sure even after he confirmed it was real. She said, oh, oooooh kayyyyyy, in a doubting manner. So after a couple of minutes later after first handing her the note, she finally accepted it. I thought that was so funny. Most of the girls that work at Canadian Tire or no more older than 20 I'd say. Most are just young teenagers.

Same thing happens to me! I have a bunch of circulated 1973 $1s and some 1986 $2s and I love spending them and watching the reactions I get. The people that have never seen the bills think that they are fake. While others, who have grown up with these bills and not seen them in circulation for awhile, think that they have found some kind of treasure and quickly put the bill in there till under a stack of other bills so that no one will find it. The scary thing is when I deposit some of the older bills into the bank and the tellers don't even know what they are    or they automatically think it is fake

Here is a story of my experience with giving out older bill

Go into a store and at the check out give a older 5  and 2 dollar bill.  Well the 16 year old looks at the money an and has a shocked look.  After about 12 seconds , his chest expands and he has a great glow in in face.   He says to me,  "This is Fat" .  Being the old guy I am I ask him what "FAT meant.  He replied to me with confidence "This is a Keeper for me."  He continues to tell me that he is a paper money collector and this is his first paper money for his collection.  Well I am glad I could help.  

Go into a drive through at a timmies in the middle of winter, wind blowing, bitter cold and decide to get a coffee.  I proceed to  give the girl a 2 dollar note to pay for my purchase. As the little window shuts, me without my coffee, she looks at it, leaves and shows everyone throughout the store the two dollar bill. Here i am seeing her show this bill around and still not recieving my coffee. When she returns and gives me my coffee,  I ask her if she has ever had seen one before and she says "yes my Oma gave me one once"  Hmm makes you feel sort of old.  Oh by the way my coffee was fine.

Overall it is nice to see the kids have a little surprise and can now keep the bill for  the future.  

Polarbear

I thoroughly enjoy doing this whenever possible. Any nickel 50c or $1 coins, or $1 or $2 bills that I can get at face value, I will acquire as many as I can and spend them all. It's great fun!

These are all great stories and heart warming to hear (boy am I getting sentimental in my old age or what??)

But everyone should stop and think about what a good idea it is to hand out circulated common notes out to children, the younger generation, or folks that give us service.  Why?  Well- don't we have a vested interest in perpetuating this hobby? Should we not give a bit ... (we have all benefitted from the hobby in some way) in order to provide future generations of collectors?  I think so...

For instance: I gave out 1954 $2.00 and $5.00 as a Christmas tip to my hair stylist and they were tickled pink.  Whether they spent them is entirely up to them.  But they were fascinated with the notes (all of them being old time "new Canadians")

And I am handing out circulated 1986 $2.00 to a (small) class of Deaf children I teach, as part of a reward system (thanks Oli1001!).  I know some teachers wince at the idea of rewarding students with money (is it a bribe?) but I've been teaching these kids the importance of starting a hobby (it requires classification, discipline, and its an interesting past time), so I'd like to start them off  with a small incentive.  Plus, it allows me to establish a "reward system" rather than the typical punishment/discipline system. Its nice to keep things positive -- and it has helped a little in keeping some a little more motivated.

As the old saying goes: "what goes around -- comes around."

Where did you get those circulated bills from BJWM :-?. Its great to hear that you are sharing with your students James, I have some more crispier 1973 $1a and 1986 $2 in strong EFs / AUs that I'm whiling to donate at face for that cause...just contact me.

We sold many donated $1 and $2 notes at the young collectors table, to young collectors for 1/2 face value.

I paid for postal services a couple of days ago with $2 notes, and I recall using a few wrinkled 1954 $1 notes recently at the local variety store. The girl working there had to phone her father (who owned the store) to see if she could take them. She had never seen a $1 bill before, only loons.

Rick