The $2 bill is an oddity — a low denomination that can evenly divide larger and more common bills in circulation such as the $10, $20, $50 and $100 — yet still rare and a bill that may raise eyebrows by some when presented as a form of payment.
Nevertheless, the $2 is not a relic nor simply a collector’s item. In fact, the note has been issued in one form or another since 1776, with the “greenback” paper form emerging at the time of the Civl War, and the $2 bill still printed to this day, according to the U.S. Currency Education Program.
As of 2017, there are 1.2 billion $2 bills in circulation, worth $2.4 billion, according to the U.S. Currency Education Program, with more recent figures by the Federal Reserve putting that at $2.7 billion worth of $2 bills as of 2020, or about 1.4 billion physical $2 bills.
The bill displays America’s third president, Thomas Jefferson, on the front, and from 1928 to 1976 a vignette of Jefferson’s home, Monticello, was portrayed on the back, according to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in the Department of the Treasury.
The current rendition of the bill came into circulation in 1976 in celebration of the country’s bicentennial, switching the portrayal of Monticello for one of the presentation of the Declaration of Independence, the BEP added.
“For most of their history, $2 notes have been unpopular, being viewed as unlucky or simply awkward to use in cash exchanges,” the BEP said, adding the bills were often returned to the Treasury with their corners torn off and making them unfit for reissuing.
Yet, despite this, the BEP noted that during World War II the bill was given a limited new lease on life when in early 1942 the Treasury forbade carrying U.S. currency across the U.S.-Mexican border in order to “prevent use being made of Mexico as a place in which Axis agents may dispose of dollar currency looted abroad.”
The sole exceptions to this blockade were the $2 bill and silver dollars since it was believed these forms of currency were not widely available outside of the U.S. — greatly increasing the demand for the $2 bill along the border, the BEP said.
Nowadays however, the $2 bill, while still a valid form of payment, has also taken on sentimental value for some.
For example at Clemson University in South Carolina, an alumnus named George Bennett, who worked in fundraising, started a long-lasting Clemson Tigers football tradition involving the $2 back in 1977 evolving out on a potential snub by one of their most regularly played teams, Georgia Tech, which typically drew thousands from Clemson to Atlanta for the matchup, according to WBUR.
Bennett saw an opportunity to make Atlanta’s economy uniquely aware of Clemson’s impact when they showed up each year by flooding hotels, restaurants and businesses with $2 bills, WBUR added — bills often stamped with an orange paw-print.
For one guest columnist in The Tennessean, she explained how the $2 bill took on an emotional significance after her grandmother’s death thanks to the special nature of the bill and how it helped her to remember and cherish her grandmother’s memory.
There was even “The Two Dollar Bill Documentary” made about the $2 bill — a bill which is sometimes also called “the deuce.”
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