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In the late 19th century they were also used to pay for, uh, âservicesâ in brothels. Those two associations led to a lot of people refusing to spend $2 bills because they were afraid the recipient would think theyâd been indulging in the races or the âfilliesâ.
Theyâre definitely not worthless, but you have to go to Germany to exchange them. The Bundesbank has said it will let people convert DM to euros without any time limit.The rate is roughly 2 DM = âŹ1.
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John Oliverâs figures are correct, per the US Mint. 1.7 cents includes costs of the metal, manufacturing, and distribution. Your friend may have been thinking of just one step in that process.
Itâs a joke as @renke lives in Germany and knows this. (The strikeout URL is the joke.)
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She should have paid with one of these
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The officer and school officials are being misrepresented in this post. Yes, they thought the $2 bill was fake (counterfeit), but nowhere does the original article imply they werenât aware of the existence of the $2 denomination. The bill in question was from the 1953 series, which looks quite a bit different from the current two, and, because of its age, their counterfeit-detecting pen gave a false positive. They really thought it was a counterfeit example of a legitimate bill. And @frauenfelderâs line ââŚwent to a bank with the bill, where he was told that $2 bills are legal tender.â is pure fiction.
That being said, there were probably better things for that officer to be doing than running all over town trying to find the counterfeiter. And they probably should have apologized, and maybe bought her lunch.
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âPROBABLYâ??
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The alleged theft of $2 worth of chicken tenders led a campus officer â average salary $45,000 a year â to the convenience store that gave grandma the $2 bill.
Next stop â and these are just the facts â the cop went to a bank to examine the bill.
Finally, the mystery was solved: The $2 bill wasnât a fake at all. It was real.
Oh dear. Looks like you failed reading comprehension. Back to the eighth grade for you.
I wonder if thatâs a common problem? Should the adults have considered that possibility before treating the constitution like toilet paper?
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I think I see why you think this. You read @frauenfelderâs link, which was a commentary about the actual news story and it gave a link to the abc news story, but you didnât read the actual news story. This is where you wouldâve read that the police officer did indeed go to the bank, where they told him that circulated currency can be old.
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ââŚthe cop went to a bank to examine the bill ⌠The $2 bill wasnât a fake at all. It was real.â
The bank told him that bill wasnât a fake. They didnât reveal to him the existence of two dollar bills for the first time.
Quote to me the part in the original news story that says the officer and school employees werenât aware of the existence of $2 bills. They say âfakeâ to mean counterfeit, not an entirely made up denomination of bills.
Pray tell; why would anyone go to the trouble of counterfeiting such a low and uncommon denomination?
Especially a minor who was probably without access to any of the tools needed to even attempt such a forgery?
Thereâs a severe lack of critical thinking therein.
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Oh I donât deny that they were dumb to think it was counterfeit. Someone could have Googled 1953 $2 bill and then thereâd be no reason to detain and intimidate a 13-old-black girlâŚ
Hmmm. Come to think of it, maybe there is a reason why they didnât do that.
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I didnât write that I knew what the officer was thinking. I simply wrote:
But let me add that if the officer knew that $2 bills are legal tender, surely he wouldnât have needed to go to the bank. Surely he didnât have to accuse the grandmother of passing counterfeit money. Apparently, he was confused by coming across dated currency. A simple phone call to a bank about the use of these marking pens, which Iâve never personally used on currency less than a $20, would have cleared up everything.
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âA school police officer in suburban Houston didnât recognize as legal tender a $2 bill used by a 13-year-old who just wanted some chicken nuggets.â Dallas Morning News
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Exactly.
@subextraordinaire makes an excellent point; Iâve never seen anyone use a pen on any bill smaller than a twenty.
Now I guess itâs possible that the school in question has a policy for checking all incoming currency, but somehow I donât think its very probable.
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Well, the school clearly has a policy of checking the currency from anyone who isnât white.
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Funny thing about the so called ârace cardâ; lots of people of color in the US are like me - we often go out of our way to avoid using it, giving most people and situations every âbenefit of the doubtâ, sometimes even up to a point where its almost detrimental to us.
We scrutinize the facts as we know them, and we are careful about not throwing such accusations around casually; because we donât want to be seen as âwhiny victimsâ with a âpersecution complex,â and we want our legitimate concerns to be taken seriously when real injustice and grievances occur.
That being said, there are times when disbelief can simply not be suspended, and you just have to acknowledge the fucking elephant in the room⌠because itâs fucking crushing people beneath its immense weight.
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