1976 "First Day of Issue" $2.00 Bills

Above, some of the "First Day of Issue" $2.00 bills that were in the strongbox. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

When I had a strongbox opened by a local locksmith recently, I found inside an envelope of about 20 uncirculated $2.00 bills stamped and cancelled April 13, 1976  by the Hawthorne (California) post office commemorating the bill's first day of issue. We lived in Hawthorne, California at the time. 

The strongbox was locked for years and stored in my closet. I had no idea what was inside. My dad went to the post office and bought the stamped and cancelled bills.

How collectible is this $2.00 bill?

According to CoinWeek:

Some observers were hopeful that the $2 denomination would be accepted in commerce, possibly reducing demand for $1 FRNs. An April 11, 1976, New York Times article claimed, “The new $2 note is expected to replace about one‐half of the $1 bills in circulation over the next several years. This will result in an estimated saving of $4 million to $7 million per year in printing costs.”

Nevertheless, the notes did not circulate widely, whatever the hopes of their proponents. The denomination is so uncommon in some areas that people have been arrested for trying to spend $2 notes at retail establishments. Yet the vast majority of Series 1976 $2 bills are abundant and affordable.

An interesting notaphilic and philatelic product was created around the Series 1976 $2 Federal Reserve Note release. Many people took the bills to post offices on the release day, April 13, affixed stamps directly to the notes, and had the stamps canceled at their local post office. Numerous series of commemorative stamps were issued marking the bicentennial, which made for thematically fitting note-stamp pairings. The stamped notes are not worth much beyond their face value, but a collector might seek out a note from their hometown or another location of personal significance

This boils down to, "It depends upon whom you ask." The amounts I've seen the most online are $5.00 to $15.00 each.

To read more, go here.

At CraftBuds, this chart was posted: