Help with identifying this note!

[Radchemer-migration]

I recently inherited a short snorter of WW II - Korean War vintage. It contained a very strange note. It was a tissue paper thin (like onion skin) with the familiar view of Monticello as on the reverse of a $2 note. However, the other side was completely blank except for short snorter signatures. Aside from there being no front, the size, color, and quality of the printing indicated a genuine note.

 

Anyone have an idea of what this is.

[Coindude]

Could just be a misprint... and if it were missing all the front printing, I would expect it worth quite a bit. Any pics?

[Conder101]

I'd say it is almost certainly not a misprinted note if it is actually tissue paper thin.

[Radchemer-migration]

I'm new to up-loading images. Let me know if this doesn't work. Thanks.

 

[Radchemer-migration]

Let's try that again: http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm251/radchemer/2bill-1.jpg

[Bigdon2-migration]

I suspect that what you have is a "split note." This works only on fairly well-used banknotes. When I was a kid, my friends and I learned you could take a used note, and by starting at the corner, using a pin and picking at its edge, split the note into two uniface halves -- similar to skinning a rabbit. It takes several hours, but if you have a lot of time on your hands it can be done. This leaves each half "rice-paper thin" and uniface. We would play with them awhile, then glue the halves back together, usually topsy-turvey, and spend them. (Our other numismatic trick was to dip "white" 1943 pennies in a copper-sulfate solution to make "copper" pennies out of them.) Cheers, Bigdon

[Radchemer-migration]

It sounds like your childhood was pre-TV. What you describe is what I suspected, but thought was impossible. I've never seen a note separating in the least; how did you get the idea? About your penny trick, I once did something similar. I dissolved down a penny in nitric acid until it was about the diameter of a dime, and then dipped it in mercury to create a "Lincoln-head dime". I then tried seeing how many friends would accept it, and finally used it in a vending machine.

 

Thanks for your explanation.

[Bigdon2-migration]

As I recall, a friend showed me how to split a banknote. I don't know where he learned to do it. It was a fad for a couple of weeks. Frankly, splitting the notes was such a chore, we got bored with it. I recall splitting maybe three or four banknotes. Two or three friends probably did about the same. And, yes, this was pre TV in the early 1950s.