Sources

Every date and figure on 2dollar.us traces to one of the records below, and each page cites the specific source beside the claim it supports. Government records win where sources disagree; the ranking, and the labels that separate an official record from a dealer's asking price, are set out on the Editorial Standards page. Image sources are listed separately under Image Credits. Links were checked August 24, 2026.

Government and Official

• Bureau of Engraving and Printing: $2 Note, Serial Numbers, History of Currency, and the fact sheets Historical Highlights: $2 Note (PDF), Silver Certificates, Treasury Coin Notes, and Currency Notes (PDF).
• U.S. Currency Education Program, uscurrency.gov: $2 Note Issued 1976 to Present (PDF), the Noteworthy podcast episode "Much Ado About the Two", and a post on X, February 2024.
• Federal Reserve Board: FAQs on denominations issued, the cost of producing currency, whether a business must accept cash, and the life span of paper money; the staff working paper of December 2013 (PDF).
• Federal Reserve Financial Services: Currency Depositing and Ordering, the coin and currency FAQ, the Visual Reference Guide, and the Cash Services Manual of Procedures (PDF).
• Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond: Suzanne J. Stone, "The $2 Bill Returns," Economic Review, March/April 1976 (PDF).
• Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Liberty Street Economics: "Crisis Chronicles: Not Worth a Continental".
• U.S. Government Accountability Office: GAO-11-281 (PDF) and GAO-19-300 (PDF) on replacing the $1 note with a coin.
• U.S. Secret Service: "Learn How to Spot Fake Money," November 2025.
• Office of the Comptroller of the Currency: history, 1863 to 1865.
• United States Mint: the Bureau of Engraving and Printing uncut currency store.
• United States Code, at Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute: 31 U.S.C. 5103, 18 U.S.C. 475, and 18 U.S.C. 504.
• Statutes at Large and bills, at govinfo.gov: the Act of February 25, 1862 (PDF), the Act of July 11, 1862 (PDF), the Act of March 3, 1865 (PDF), Public Law 88-36, 77 Stat. 54 (PDF), H.R. 2528 (2001), and H.R. 5818 (2006). Public Law 84-140 is read at Wikisource.
• U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Historian: the legislation placing "In God We Trust" on currency.
• U.S. Capitol Visitor Center: H.R. 240, the Legal Tender Act of 1862.
• Clemson University: Traditions, on the $2 bill tradition.
• Central banks and mints abroad, on their own $2 notes and coins: Bank of Canada, the Royal Canadian Mint, the Royal Australian Mint, The Royal Mint, the European Central Bank, the Bermuda Monetary Authority, the Central Bank of Belize, the Central Bank of Barbados, and the Reserve Bank of Fiji (PDF).

Production and Serial Data

• Bureau of Engraving and Printing: Annual Production Reports, and the monthly production reports for March 2025 (PDF), September 2025 (PDF), and December 2025 (PDF).
• Federal Reserve Board: Currency Print Orders and the print order archive, with the yearly orders for 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025.
• Federal Reserve Board: Volume of Currency in Circulation and Value of Currency in Circulation, by denomination and year.
• USPaperMoney.info, an independent compilation of the Bureau's monthly reports: the $2 note summary; the series tables for 1976, 1995, 2003, 2003A, 2009, 2013, and 2017A; and the uncut sheets page (the 2003 premium-set star blocks, the sheet-only blocks); the red seal tables for 1928 to 1928G, 1953, 1953A, 1953B, 1953C, 1963, and 1963A
• MyCurrencyCollection, a collector site: its $2 star note production tables, cited on the 2013 and 2017A guides as a second compilation of the Bureau's reports, with its 2017A Philadelphia estimate labeled as one of three conflicting figures.

Grading and Population

• PMG, on the red seal $2: "PMG Certifies Rare and High Grade 1928B $2 Star Note" (2015); "Counterfeit Detection: Altered $2 Legal Tender Note" (2021); "Small Size Varieties" (2010); the D. Brent Pogue Collection list; and its Heritage previews of January 2025 and September 2021.
• PMG, Paper Money Guaranty: the grading scale; "Solid Serial Numbers"; the Error Chronicles on the doubled print, the inverted overprint, and the mismatched prefix; the Fancy Serial Number Files on serial number 1 and low serial numbers; the Registry Featured Set on the Series 1976 $2; and Educational Series Notes, part one and part two.
• PCGS, Professional Coin Grading Service: PCGS Banknote, and its closer looks at the 1886 silver certificates, the Series of 1896 silver certificate, and the Series of 1918 Battleship notes.

Auction Records

• Heritage Auctions, The Intelligent Collector: the Series 1976 $2 Federal Reserve Note, serial number 1. The lot page for the Series 2003 serial number 7 star is cited on the 2003 guide by its address only; the page could not be opened.
• Invaluable: the PhoenixxExchange lot of a Series 2013 Atlanta star, estimate only.
• Lyn Knight Auctions: the catalog session offering the Georgetown collection of error notes, and the catalogs of March 2016, November 2018, June 2019, and May 2022 for red seal $2 estimates.
• RR Auction: Gene Cernan's three-time-flown $2 bill.
• Stack's Bowers Galleries: "What's Your Fancy?", on fancy serial numbers.
• Invaluable: a Key Date Coins lot of a first-day postmarked 1976 note, July 2025.
• American Numismatic Association, Reading Room: "Way Too Far", on the November 2023 serial number 2 sale.

Historical Archives and Museums

• Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library: the President's Daily Diary for April 12, 1976 (PDF) and April 13, 1976 (PDF).
• Baker Library, Harvard Business School: the Continental $2 of February 17, 1776, via Wikimedia Commons.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art: the Continental $2 of February 26, 1777.
• University of Chicago Library: the United States currency collection finding aid.
• New Jersey State Library: "Not Worth a Continental".
• Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Republic of Texas currency; Texas State Historical Association, Handbook of Texas: "Money of the Republic of Texas".
• Virginia Department of Historic Resources: Confederate currency in the Lee cornerstone box.
• American Numismatic Association: the Money Museum's Demand Notes exhibit and the Reading Room article "Way Too Far".
• Society of Paper Money Collectors: the obsolete note database.
• Federal Reserve History, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: the National Banking Acts.
• Bank of Canada Museum: "The Coming of the Toonie".
• Smithsonian National Numismatic Collection and other collections, via Wikimedia Commons: the note scans, each listed with its file page under Image Credits.

Reporting and Secondary

Numismatic Press

• Numismatic News, on the red seal $2: "Red Seal Small Size Notes $1, $2 and $5" (2024) and "Unique star note among offerings" (2017); CoinWeek, "Series 1953 United States $2 and $5 Notes: A Collector's Guide" (2025); Proof and Planchet, "1953 $2 United States Notes" (2025); Numista, $2 United States Note 1928 to 1928G; The Paper Money Project, 1928 $2 Legal Tender.
• CoinWeek: "The Bicentennial $2 Bill: First of a Kind" and the 1869 Rainbow $2.
• Coin World: the Series 1896 silver certificates, the Georgetown collection of error notes, the uncut sheet program, and the 2023 restart of collector products.
• Numismatic News: "The Coolest Error Notes, Part 2", the 2026 space-flown currency auction, the 2003 $2 star note packages, and the Texas $2 Step.
• CoinNews: the 1862 serial number 1 at Heritage, and the Bureau product releases for Lucky Money 8.8.8, the 2011 Single Note Collection, the 2011 sheet price increase, the 2012 single notes, the Series 2009 sheets, the 8888 notes, the Series 2013 sheets, the Lucky Panda note, and the 2019 Youth Set.
• The E-Sylum, Numismatic Bibliomania Society: "Steve Wozniak's Perforated Pads of $2 Bills".
• Miami Valley Coin Club: "History of the Two-Dollar Bill: Are They Bad Luck?".
• Coin World, on Series 2017A: "Just three denominations printed so far for Series 2017 notes" (April 1, 2019), "Latest BEP production report reveals Series 2017A notes" (September 2, 2019), and "Transition from Series 2017 to 2017A continues at BEP" (December 11, 2019).
• Numismatic News: "$2 star note packages new from BEP" (July 21, 2008), the Series 2003 premium-set stars.

General Press and Reference

• Money: "America's Very Brief Love Affair With the $2 Bill".
• WBUR, Only A Game: "The Legend Of The Clemson $2 Bill"; ESPN: the Clemson tradition, 2019.
• Utne Reader: "The Two-Dollar Dance".
• Forbes: "Police Involved After Student Tries To Buy Lunch With $2 Bill".
• NBC Chicago: the serial numbers to look for.
• Time: Hornady's $2 bonus, 2014; Deseret News: Geneva Steel, 2003; The Baltimore Sun: March 8, 2005; Lodi News-Sentinel and Tahoe Daily Tribune on Spend Tom: Lodi, Tahoe.
• The Christian Science Monitor: the 2012 Starbucks buycott; Buckeye Firearms Association: the same event, from the organizers' side.
• CBS News: "Whatever Happened To The $2 Bill," 1998; New York Post, via Yahoo News: young cashiers and the $2 bill, 2025.
• LNP, LancasterOnline: Lunar New Year, February 5, 2019; Chase: "Lunar New Year: Red Envelope".
• Bored Panda and Upworthy on the 2026 Grammys: Bored Panda, Upworthy.
• Pacific Standard: "Money, Money, Money," May 15, 2015; The Conversation: Benjamin Franklin's anti-counterfeiting techniques.
• U.S. News & World Report, August 22, 1966, as reproduced by Click Americana.
• The Two Dollar Bill Documentary: the film's site and its IMDb entry.
• Barry Popik and Green's Dictionary of Slang on the phrase "phony as a three-dollar bill": Popik, Green's.
• RecordSetter: the largest collection of $2 bills.
• Tripadvisor: a visitor review of the Monticello gift shop, cited as a visitor report only.
• Collectors Universe forums, cited as forum discussions only: first day of issue notes and the Skourtes Collection showcase of July 24, 2022.
• Straight Dope message board: a thread on the Navy payday story, cited as a forum discussion only.
• Wikipedia: "United States two-dollar bill", used for outline and for design descriptions of individual notes, never for a number where a primary source exists.
• On the "worth thousands" headlines, quoted on the 2013 guide: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (November 10, 2023), Scripps News, and Follow the Money.

Dealer Guides and Value Sites

Each of these is a dealer, a price guide, or a value site. Where a page relies on one, the page says so.

• Greysheet, price guide: Fr. 354, the 1890 $2 Treasury Note.
• Silver Recyclers, dealer guides: the 1976 $2 bill, the 1995 $2 bill, and the 2003 $2 bill, the 2013 $2 bill, and the 2017 $2 bill; and the 1928, 1953, and 1963 $2 bills
• Serial Worth, value aggregator: $2 Federal Reserve Notes and the Series 1976 page; its sale records name a date and grade but not the auction house. Its Legal Tender pages for 1928, 1928B, 1928C, 1928G, 1953, 1953A, 1953B, 1953C, 1963, and 1963A supply the red seal year guides, labeled secondary throughout. Its Federal Reserve Note pages for 2003, 2003A, 2013, and 2017A supply the modern year guides the same way.
• Chronicle Collectibles, dealer: 1976 $2 bill value.
• GovMint, dealer: "What Is a Star Note?".
• APMEX, dealer: the history of small-size U.S. currency.
• Collectibles Currency, dealer: star notes; Currency Quest, dealer: the Millennium $2 notes.
• Old Currency Values, dealer: Series 1928 $2 bills and Series 2003 $2 bills.
• U.S. Currency Auctions, dealer: the star note price guide, "based on average prices realized from recent and past U.S. paper money auction results and fixed price retail sales."
• Collectibles Currency, dealer: the Series 2017A Philadelphia star listing.
• 2013 $2 Bill Value, value site: Series 2013 values.
• MyCurrencyCollection, collector site: "Types and Values of Fancy Serial Numbers".

Left Out

Claims that could not be sourced are not on the site.

• The Pulp Fiction and Cheers $2 bill scenes: not verified, so not claimed.
• The year of the note in the 2016 Fort Bend lunch incident: sources disagree, so the site says only that the note was genuine.
• The Series 2017A Philadelphia star total: three sources give 1,040,000, 2,880,000, and 4,240,000, so the 2017A guide shows all three and adopts none.
• A report that the Series 2003 serial number 7 star "brought $1,175" at a 2012 sale: seen only in a search summary of a Heritage page that could not be opened, so not repeated as a figure.
• A press claim that the $2,400 Series 2003 note was "resold for $4,000": the ANA attributes the $4,000 sale to a 1976 note, so the 2003 guide records the conflict and not the resale.