Did you inherit – or once collect – old paper money? If they’re US bills, your instinct may be to deposit them, as you would any other legal tender. If they’re foreign currency, your instinct might have been to get the bills exchanged for US currency, or just to get rid of them in one way or another.
You should resist both impulses.
The pursuit of collecting bills, also known as notaphily, is a popular hobby worldwide. It receives less attention than other collection hobbies do, of course, but there is a subset of the population that will pay well for the right bills missing from their collections. Paper money has been around since 100 AD (at least), which means some notes also offer a window into history and cultural heritages worth exploring.
Paper-money collectors tend to think about and focus their collections with a number of different categories: by continent, by denomination, by country, or by historical period, for instance. Some collectors even focus on counterfeit bills.
How much can I get for old bank notes?
Some bank notes have sold for as much as $1,000,000, well over the amount listed on the face of the note. Over time, prices are rise as certain notes grow more scarce.
What makes paper money valuable?
There are several factors collectors look at.
The first is condition. Notaphilists often struggle to find bank notes in good condition. A note that’s entirely uncirculated and in mint condition is a rare and valuable find. Still, sometimes low-grade notes are the only notes that exist in certain categories, so unlike with other collectibles, condition may not be the biggest influence on the value of the note.
For notaphilists, rarity often is the greater issue. If you’re looking at US currency, look for unusual denominations, like the $3 bill or the $7 bill.
If the face value of the note is particularly high and the country that produced it still exists, it may even still be legal tender. It may surprise you to know that any US printed money minted after 1861 is still legal tender. If you find a Federal Reserve note with $10,000 on its face, then the note is worth at least that much.
Sometimes serial numbers attract attention, too.
Also, PMG publishes a World Paper Money price guide, which can give you a ballpark.
We can sell your bank notes at auction for maximum value
Looking up your notes online will never give you a true appraisal of their value. This is determined by supply, demand, current trends in the collecting world, and a number of small, individual valuation factors. You can have each note graded by a grading expert, but that is an expensive and time-consuming process.
We’ll appraise the notes and then put them up for auction. We’ll market your live auction or online auction to numismatists and notaphilists who are ready to pay top dollar for collectables like yours. We handle all the hassle of making sure you get top dollar for your paper currency.
