More Than Face Value

A UPS store manager in North Dakota was asked to take a look at a $20 bill on Monday when a woman tried to pay with the pristine, but slightly off-looking twenty. The counter clerk thought the bill was a fake.

But even when a pen test confirmed the bill was made on currency paper, the employee remained unconvinced and called her manager.

"For lack of a better word, it is in pristine condition. That's why we thought it was fake," store manager Nancy Kostelecky told The Dickinson Press. "Because it's not bent or it had been sealed in something because there is nothing wrong with it."

The woman who tried to pay with the bill told Kostelecky she had no idea where it had come from. Still, Kostelecky cut her some slack and bought the bill from her so she could pay and be on her way. But when the store manager had it checked out at a local bank, tellers told her it appeared to be a real $20 bill from sometime around 1934.

"I did some checking and found that they were going on eBay anywhere from $64 to $134 for that particular $20 bill," Kostelecky told the Dickinson Press.

Kostelecky says she plans to give the bill to her father, who collects coins.

We can't resist saying, if we had a $20 bill worth five times its face value for every $20 we have -- why, we'd be rich!

Photo courtesy of Phyll1s via Flickr (not actual $20 in question).