Luckyjeff

It is considered a binary but not a TRUE binary of just 0's and 1's. The odds of getting a note like this are about 1 in 9,000 but the condition is not very good. Fun to keep and use for liars poker or just because it is cool. I wouldn't spend it.

That was a really cool article. Thank you for sharing. I also read about "Mule" designation and the star designation.

Very tempted to keep the 88888888 because I could never afford to buy a bill like that or a similar rare note. If I grade it with PMG, it will qualify as a Super Fancy because it is solid 8's and is a rotator as well. If I keep it, I will grade it but the unfortunate thing about that particular bill is that it is not as perfectly centered as its surrounding bills so it will not grade REAL high. Probably mid 60's. I am going to a currency fair in North Georgia in August so I will see how similar bills are priced there. It was really interesting looking at the Stacks Bowers completed auctions for the US and Hong Kong. Solids and similar fancy notes have been really popular in Hong Kong but not as much here. Unfortunately, I didn't see ANY US currency auctioned in the Hong Kong market so I wonder about that. Anyway, thank you for your feedback. I really appreciate it very much.

Thank you very much Fenntucky Mike! One thing I have learned with age is appreciating how much I DON'T know so I value advice more than when I was young. Very good thoughts. One thing about the Stacks Bowers free grading is that they will grade bills that they feel will benefit from grading, not every submission. However, as you indicated, they want to maximize the returns for their pocketbooks and reputation so if they thing the bill or coin will benefit then they will definitely pay for the grading. In my perfect world, I make enough on the bills to justify keeping 88888880-88888889 because the set is so hard to keep but I'm pretty certain that Stacks Bowers will require the surrender of that set to run the auction. They indicated that the collection needs to be valued at over $10,000 for them to do the deal with grading and I don't think that I have enough other special bills to successfully reach that level without throwing in the 10 best.

From that series that you see above, I have several hundred bills, all starting with 88888 with various combinations like 88888237 (Lucky numbers for Horse as well as the other Chinese Zodiac lucky numbers), about 45 bills that start with 888888 including 88888880-88888889. Where I struggle is with the meaning of combinations of numbers. I've read that 4 means death but if the number is 848 then it implies wealth for 8 lifetimes. 74 might mean "Death for certain" but 78 might mean "Wealth for certain". I have a very big Asian community where I live, maybe second only to San Francisco and New York but figuring out WHO to contact is the challenge. BTW, I am assuming you took those notes during COVID to keep safe.....hahaha. The big thing about US notes vs. other countries is that we have 8 digits in our notes which means that it is roughly 1 in 96,000,000 chance of landing solid 8's vs. some countries currencies that only have 6 digits meaning that solid 8's occur as 1 in 999,999 which is a LOT more frequent. I've contacted Stacks Bowers about auctioning off my bills but I have a pretty good feeling that they'd struggle with good Asian combinations. I searched for license plate numbers that auction off at a high price to get some idea of what other good number combinations to look for in my notes. I have several from the 200's like 88888268 and 88888222 as well as 88888226. Another big challenge is figuring out WHICH notes to professionally grade. I think the complete 10 note set 88888880-88888889 should be graded as well as the number above 88888666 but then it gets a bit tricky because grading isn't cheap.

You mean like a note like this?