shaDEz Report This Comment Date: January 08, 2006 06:04AM
By MATT JOYCE, Associated Press Writer
Fri Jan 6, 6:48 PM ET
DALLAS - A $20 bill printed on paper that mysteriously had an ordinary fruit
sticker on it sold Friday for $25,300, an auction company official said.
The flawed note bears a red, green and yellow Del Monte sticker next to Andrew
Jackson's portrait.
The buyer at the auction in Orlando, Fla., did not want to be identified, said
Dustin Johnston, director of auctions for Heritage Galleries and Auctioneers of
Dallas.
The 1996 bill originated at a U.S. Treasury Department printing facility in
Fort Worth, but how the fruit tag found its way onto the paper of the greenback
is unknown.
"I've collected for probably seven years now and nothing comes close to the
way people react to it — their eyes pop out," said Daniel Wishnatsky, a
Phoenix currency collector who bought the bill online in 2003 for $10,100.
Jason Bradford, president of PCGS Currency in Newport Beach, Calif.,
authenticated that the error was genuine and not faked outside the printing
plant.
Currency goes through three printing stages, Bradford said: first the back is
printed, then the face, and then the bill receives serial number and treasury
seal stamps.
In the case of the Del Monte note, the seal and serial number are both printed
on top of the sticker, meaning the fruit tag must have found its way onto the
bill midway through the process, he said.
The note, in nearly perfect condition, has achieved celebrity status among
currency collectors, appearing on the covers of the Bank Note Reporter and
Numismatic News.
90130 Report This Comment Date: January 08, 2006 09:32AM
Some dumbass must've been eaten a banana on the printing press.
Anonymous Report This Comment Date: January 08, 2006 02:59PM
That waould be me. I had a banana with lunch that day and I did put the
sticker there, hoping that I could gain possession of the bill after it was
printed. I knew it would be worth a lot of maoney. But Alas, it slipped through
my fingers and others have gotten rich. They may have been my only shot at the
Brass Ring.