In his last video, Coin World Senior Editor Paul Gilkes talked about the first Series 1976 $2 Federal Reserve note he received in circulation, only a recent occurrence. He briefly presents reports of two more finds, one involving U.S. paper money and the other U.S. coins.

Full video transcript:

Good morning. This is the Monday Morning Brief. I’m Coin World Senior Editor Paul Gilkes.

In my last video, I talked about the first Series 1976 $2 Federal Reserve note I recently received in circulation. I have two more short reports, one on U.S. paper money, one on U.S. coins.

The paper money report is my Feb. 16 receipt in change of a Series 1950A $20 Federal Reserve note. With the life expectancy of a U.S. note measured in months, I wonder how long this heavily creased note was first in circulation, then possibly pulled and re-circulated, after its printing some 50-plus years ago. The note bears a much smaller replication of engraver Alfred Sealey’s portrait of Andrew Jackson than is seen on $20 denominations of today, and a different rendition of the White House and its surrounding shrubbery. Although the note is not particularly valuable, it is an example of the design progression of the denomination for the past six decades.

The note bears the signatures of Treasury Secretary George M. Humphrey and U.S. Treasurer Ivy Baker Priest. For us kids of the 1960s, the treasurer was the mother of Pat Priest, the second Marilyn on the 1960s television comedy, The Munsters, whom I had the privilege of meeting in Chicago a few years ago and had the opportunity to discuss her mother’s tenure in Washington.

My other report concerns the often-maligned Lincoln cent. If you discover a one-cent coin accidentally or intentionally dropped on the ground, do you bend over and pick it up, or pass it by?

On Feb. 17 while crossing the drive-thru exit lane to enter the local McDonald’s here in Sidney, Ohio, my eyes quickly became fixated on not one or two lost Lincoln cents, but 17 of them. Obviously an intentional drop. I picked up every one of them, making sure I didn’t get run over like the cents previously had multiple times based on their condition. The newest cent was dated 2015-D; the oldest, a San Francisco Mint strike from 1974. I asked a colleague here if they ever pick up Lincoln cents they spot. The response: only if the obverse is face up, otherwise it’s bad luck. If that’s the case, I’m cursed.

Good luck to wherever your numismatic travels take you. For Coin World, I’m Paul Gilkes.

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