The New Year’s ball that dropped in Times Square last year cost about $5 million.  Five million dollars:

• Throw off $50,000 per year, even at 1% interest
• Stretch over 484 miles in $1 bills laid end-to-end
• Is accrued on the US National Debt every two and a half minutes
• Would weigh over 17 tons in Lincoln cents
• Would put you in the top 0.1% of salary earners
• Was only five days worth of spending for Montgomery Brewster

Happy New Year!

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Notaphily (pronounced no-TAH-fuh-lee) is the collecting of bank notes.  Related terms are philately (stamp collecting) and scripophily (old stock and bond collecting).

After writing my post yesterday on gift cards vs. cash, and after thinking about what people might do if their unused gift cards expire worthless or if the company can go out of business, I checked on eBay to see if people were selling expired Circuit City gift cards.

There were a few auctions going on for Circuit City cards.  After that, I looked around and found that there’s an active community of people who collect gift cards.  I’ll call it plastiphily (plass-TIFF-uh-lee). Take, for example, this site:  GiftCardCollector.com.  This is a passion every bit as powerful as coin collecting or baseball card collecting.  There’s discussion over things like the following:

• differences in design of a single card over different years
• printing registration variations
• whether specific geographic area designations appear on the card or not
• foreign-language versions
• die-cut cards

(Oh, these were discussed just about Macy’s gift cards!)

EBay has auctions going on for no-value gift cards right now.  The two auctions that have bids right now are a 2004 $25 Starbucks gift card from Canada, and a lot of 25 Victoria’s Secret gift cards (currently $3.99 + $3.50 shipping).

A by-product of this individual fascination with gift cards is a comprehensive history of a retail advertising niche.  It’s not just “Here’s a gift card for that hard-to-buy-for person.”  It’s also “Here’s a gift card with a terrified cat on it for that hard-to-buy-for person who enjoys terrifying cats.”  It’s store credit, with your choice of this season’s designer colors.

The first credit card was issued in 1951 but I don’t know how far back gift cards go.  If you know, I’d love to hear.

What’s more, if you find that you’re stuck with a worthless card, you may be able to sell it anyway!  Or start a new hobby.  A great chance to make some lemonade out of gift card lemons.

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Many of my colleagues have heard about the recent cease and desistery regarding the trademarking of what I thought was a fairly common term for a frugal woman which, by the way, rhymes with barista.  (Here’s some context.)

But I’m not here to take sides.  No-sir-ee-bob.  I’m just here to provide a helpful service to some of my dear colleagues who might be waiting in the wings, ready to fire up their own frugal branding juggernaut.

Here are some suggestions for frugalized names, y’all!  No need to thank me.

• Frugalneering
• Frugalerism Frugaltary
• No Frugal Needed
• Five Cent Frickel
• Poorer Than Froo
• Free Froney Frinance
• Stick Figure Cartoons Are Frugal
• Frugal Are Sexy
• The Fridgerati Life
• Frawkfox
• Frazy Man and Monaviney
• Frugal Bread
• All Frugantial Matters
• Frapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge
• Frugal Free Adventure
• Get Rich Frowly
• The Frimple Dollar
• Froolanomy
• Mrs. Fricah

Just don’t take Being Frugal, The Frugal Duchess, and Frugal for Life.  I’m going to trademark those.  KIDDING!

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I got a bit of a bonanza at the credit union today.  I’ve been in the habit of asking for funny money when I go there mainly because it’s fun to spend money that’s a little unusual.  Today I was able to withdraw a substantial number of $2 bills and a substantial number of half dollars.

As the teller was counting them out I could see that there weren’t any red-seal $2 bills, but they’re still neat to spend.  Since I didn’t really know too much about what kinds of currency errors were out there, I checked on eBay to see what people were selling.  Here’s what I found in the way of currency errors:

• Misalignment errors when cutting. Normal notes have an even border around the engraved picture on the front and back.  Sometimes the cutting gets off alignment, and you’ll have uneven borders, a chopped-off design, or even part of the next note’s picture on it.
• Misalignment in one of the printings. The green seal that overlaps the spelled-out denomination to the right of the portrait on the front, as well as the serial numbers on the bills, are applied in the third printing.  (The first and second are back and front, I believe.)  If this printing is misaligned, the seal will be off-center, or the serial numbers will overlap some other part of the bill’s design.  (One of the 1976 $2 bills I got has a misaligned seal.)
• Miscut bills. Have you ever gotten a magazine in which your had to tear apart some of the pages because they weren’t cut perfectly?  Some notes come out that way.  There might be an extra flap on one corner of the bill.
• Ink smears. Just like what it sounds:  black ink applied during the printing process gets loose on the bill.
• Printing on the wrong side. Sometimes the seal and serial number are printed on the reverse rather than the obverse.
• Gutter folds or butterfly folds. If the note gets a fold in it during the printing process, part of the note’s design will be offset from the other part.  Gutter folds go from one side of the note to the other, and butterfly folds go from one side to a perpendicular side.
• Light or missing design. If the application of the front printing is poor, the seal and serial numbers will stand out more than normal.
• Mismatched series. The letter in the black seal and the letter preceding the upper right and lower left serial numbers should all be the same.  Sometimes they’re not.

There’s a fair bit of interest in currency errors so check your wallet to see if you have some extra cash hiding in there!

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I spend way too much time on Digg for the amount of useful material it brings me, but this one was pretty funny:

Money Celebrity Pictures

These are way better than turning George Washington into a mushroom.  I mean, where else can you find Mr. Bean mashed up with currency from the Phillipines?

Another year, another four Presidential $1 coins from the US Mint.  I actually saw the first pictures of the new coins over at Consumerism Commentary.  Flexo uses the coins about as much as I do; the first couple of them I was showing everyone like I’d minted them myself.  The low-resolution pictures really don’t do the coins justice; the higher-resolution ones put the presidents in a much better light.)

He also discusses that moving the motto from the edge to the obverse might make the first year’s coins potentially more valuable.

It could be, but I doubt it makes much sense to hold onto rolls as an investment.  These aren’t exactly rare; there are over 100 million of each of the first three presidents floating around.  I went to a coin show a few months ago, and one dealer was selling uncirculated rolls for a few dollars over face value, and they weren’t flying off the shelves.  The buying power will have depreciated about $1 per roll (4%) just due to inflation.  These coins are nowhere near their face value in terms of metal content; the copper, zinc, manganese, and nickel in a presidential $1 coin cost about six cents.

The main value of the unopened, uncirculated rolls is the possibility of high-grade, rare errors.  High grade coins by themselves will command a premium to collectors, but it takes a lot of know-how to do this profitably because it’s pretty expensive to have each coin graded and slabbed by a reputable grading service.  Errors tend to be rare (though there were at least tens of thousands of the “godless” Washington dollar coins) and if it’s a missing edge lettering coin, it’s much better to have it graded so its authenticity can be verified.  PCGS would be able to tell a real error from a Dremel® job.  This is a game that can be played, but it’s not a slam dunk most of the time.  Also, I strongly suggest that you not take a bunch of them back to the bank or credit union if you withdrew them from that same bank or credit union.  Just like you shouldn’t repeatedly abuse an all-you-can-eat buffet, you shouldn’t abuse your tellers, or they’ll complain and take away your coin privileges (or charge for them).

I’m not going to keep any rolls as investments.  I’ll open them up and spend them (after checking them for errors, of course) but otherwise I don’t see a whole lot of upside to these.

Just a quick one here for fun.  I caught this website on Digg.  There are 25 pages of pictures and videos on coin stacking.  The construction is pretty amazing, and it’s all done without a drop of adhesive!

Enjoy!

Saw this article through Coinflation.com.  Marcelo Bezos spent about two years constructing a free-standing pyramid using about $4,000 worth of pennies.  The tower stands about three feet and weighs more than a ton (probably around 1,200 kg).

A time lapse video shows the construction of the pyramid from beginning to end.  This feat has spurred others to construct mini pyramids of “only” $500 worth of pennies or so, which will be given to charity.  Maybe programs like these will bring a new use for the cent, whose use is now under scrutiny because it’s minted at a loss.

The most surprising part was that the young children of Bezos’ acquaintance apparently didn’t “accidentally” knock the pyramid over during its construction.  Stacking 400,000 pennies is one thing.  Keeping those curious hands away for nearly two years is quite another!

A 1894-S Barber dime recently changed hands for $1.9 million. John Feigenbaum, a rare coin dealer in Virginia Beach, VA, escorted the dime from San Jose, CA, to the buyer in Manhattan. The appeal of this coin is not its beauty, but its rarity. Twenty-four were said to have been minted, and only nine are know to remain.

Numismatic value, which is the premium above either face value or metal content that coin collectors will pay, comes from a combination of condition, history, and rarity. The rarity of this coin is part of its history; the 1894-S was not minted for general circulation but for special VIP visitors to the mint. This specimen was in exceptional condition to boot.

I’m nervous enough carrying around relatively common coins that I buy at local shops. I can imagine Mr. Feigenbaum was more than a little edgy. He did likely get $57,000 for his sleepless redeye flight, though.

Here’s a list of fifty highly-prized US coins.

The favorite coin of my smallish collection is an 1885-O Morgan dollar (eBay). It’s in MS-63 condition and has an attractive rainbow toning that gives it character.

If you’re a coin collector, what’s the star of your collection?

Some items depreciate really quickly after they’re bought. The “class life” of an item gives an estimate of how long things should last. It’s what the IRS uses to guide taxpayers in calculating depreciation, the amount of the purchase price that the owner can deduct per year for durable goods used for business purposes. The shorter the class life, the quicker the owner can write off the purchase.

Cars and trucks have class lives from three to six years, and people spend lots of money and/or time painting them. Computers have class lives of six years, and people spend months and quite a bit of money tricking out the tower with a purple frozen tiger theme or a wooden Divine Comedy theme. Hogs have a class life of three years, and people tattoo them!

It’s probably the case that money is of little importance in these endeavors, and it’s not likely to improve resale value on the common market. The computer cases are pretty impressive-looking — the CPU magazine (eBay) article with the ice tiger case showed epoxy ice stalactites and stalagmites inside the case! I look twice at a decent paint job on a vehicle. And those tattooed pigs, well … I’m sure there are a lot of people that think that’s really cool. Don’t know how the ink would flavor a BLT though.

Anyway, once you make mods to things that have little or no lasting value, it’s basically throwing money down a hole, unless:

• You can find an enthusiast who knows what kind of work occurred and will pay a fair price for it.
• You know it costs a lot, and don’t care because you’re not making it to re-sell. You’re doing it because you’ll enjoy it.

A few weeks ago I ran across a paintball marker at a yard sale. The guy was explaining all of the features: a special ceramic barrel, a motorized hopper, etc. All told he put close to $400 in the system. He would have let it go for $60. That’s a pretty steep discount, and almost none of the customizations really meant anything to me at the time.

The main point is that making works of art out of essentially disposable items doesn’t improve their value, unless you find someone who likes art. Or you like it yourself.