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$2 Dollar Bills

knight_errant

New Jersey

Tipping with $2 bills. In the news (see below) I think it's advice I picked up on TUSCL. Dancers - in my experience- love them. The usual response is genuine gratitude..."oh, I save these in a box at home." Because they have no idea that you can just get them from the bank? Strange but fun way to inure yourself to a dancer. I know its a perennial topic here but anyone ever NOT have a positive experience tipping with twos?

"Unusual but treasured $2 bill to get its turn in the spotlight"

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-be…

By Brittany Shammas, Sun Sentinel
9:40 a.m. EDT, April 27, 2014

It's the underdog of U.S. currency, the greenback more likely to be found tucked inside a dresser drawer or wallet than a cash register.

The $2 bill makes up just 3 percent of all paper money circulating in the states.

Now, it's about to get its time in the limelight, thanks to a Delray Beach man who has always loved it. John Bennardo is crisscrossing the country to film a documentary that'll tell the story of the two and its "magic."

"I think everyone's curious about it," he said. "When you spend one, there's always a reaction."

Turns out it also makes for quite a story.

The quirky bill with Thomas Jefferson on the front and the signing of the Declaration of Independence on the back is more than just a collector's item. It's a regular at some strip clubs, a piece of a longtime Clemson University tradition and a tool used to show a group's economic influence.

While many save $2 bills, others make a point to spend them — just to see what happens next.


Bennardo was always one to save them. By last summer, the Immagine Productions owner and Lynn University professor of film and television editing had 11 of them in a desk drawer, sitting inside an old checkbook box, never to be spent. It got him thinking: What is it about the two?

And "The 2 Dollar Bill Documentary" was born.

Amy Byer Shainman, a Jupiter resident and breast cancer advocate who is also passionate about the bill, joined on as executive producer. She said she's kept a two her high school crush gave her for more than 25 years without knowing why.

"There's a mystique surrounding the $2 bill, a mystique that it's rare and anything that's rare is a matter of intrigue," Byer Shainman said.

After raising about $18,000 for the project on Kickstarter.com, Bennardo got to work last summer.

Some of his stops were right here in South Florida. There's Ettra Gallery in Delray Beach, where he talked to a man who turns $2 bills into art. Then there's his Miami shoot with American Healthy Vending, who explained why most machines don't take twos. And, Bennardo only had to go to Miami to capture Clemson's tradition at work during the Orange Bowl.

Beyond that, he has traveled to several states — including Texas, New York, Michigan and Oregon — and interviewed about 50 people in all. Along the way, Bennardo's discovered a whole society of others who share his and Byer Shainman's enthusiasm for the offbeat bill.

Among them is Heather McCabe, a copywriter from Brooklyn, N.Y., who requests $2 bills from her bank and spends them at local businesses in hopes of seeing the currency catch on. She chronicles the reactions she gets on her blog, Two Buckaroo.

McCabe, 39, started spending twos about 15 years ago because she liked the added interaction with people behind the counter.

"It became something a little more special," she said. "And plus, it always felt like an experiment, like, 'What's going to happen when I spend this $2 bill?'It never gets old."

Most people smile at the sight of the unusual bill and share a story about their experiences with it, McCabe said. Some take two singles out of their own wallets so they can pocket the deuce. Others refuse it, though McCabe said that's the least common outcome.

Many people believe the bill, which the federal government began issuing in 1862, was taken out of circulation. Because of that, you can find regular old $2 bills marked up to double their value on eBay, when they can easily be picked up at the bank for, well, $2.

There was a 10-year period that the government stopped printing twos. But that ended in 1976, when they were brought back — with much fanfare — to commemorate the U.S. bicentennial.