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| It was probably asked a few times, so I made a page... |
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
I submitted my serial number but I don't see it on your list!
First check the status of your submission here:
The status of submissions go back 1 month. The page also lists the most common reasons why a submission may of been rejected. If you submitted your serial number over a month ago, AND you think it was a valid number, then you will need to check the master list (also known as the Database) here: https://project2013b.blogspot.com/p/2013bdatabase.html
If your number is not on the master list, chances are pretty good your number was either rejected, or the master list you see was generated BEFORE you submittied your serial number. It does NOT matter if your serial number is not on the latest master list pdf. It is simply a snapshot of what the database was holding at that specific date that it was generated.
If you submit a serial number and the submission status page shows that it was accepted, that means it is in the database. The PDF list you see on the website is just a report for people to look at if they are curious.The list is a PDF file that is over 1200 pages long, so chances are some mobile phone will choke on it. You'll just have to use a REAL computer to browse it. At the end of the day you really do not need the PDF list. If a match is found in the database, you will be contacted.
The list is too long to search for my serial number. Is there an easier way to look up my serial number?
See above. The alternative is for YOU to send me payment that will cover a monthly webhosting fee, and a few hundred dollars to hire someone to set up the server to host an SQL database, and various security features so it doesn't get hacked. Project 2013B is a FREE SERVICE, so do not expect "paid service" features and speed. PS: The tips that I do get come NO WHERE NEAR what the extra features would cost.
I submitted my serial number(s) but I didn't get a email response!
You obviously did not READ the instructions that at every step of the online submission form. NO WHERE does it say that you will be emailed. There is a clear link given of where you can check a webpage to see what the status of your submission is (and even why it might of been rejected). This status page goes back one month, so check it out a day or two after your submission. https://bit.ly/checksubmission
I do not know what my Owner ID is.
In the grand scheme of things it does not matter. If a match is found for you bill, you will be contacted through the email address you entered at the time of submission. If you really want to know your owner ID, it is shown on the submission status page https://bit.ly/checksubmission If you submitted your serial number over a month ago, then you will have to check the master list (PDF) by looking up one one the serial number of your bill. You can do it, I believe in you. NOTE: if you use a different email address each time you submit a serial number, you will be assigned a different Owner ID for that specific serial number. It does not matter if you have 1 conistant Owner ID, or 17 of them, as long as the email addresses are ones that you check for messages from this website.
I see a matching bill on your list. Can you give me the email address of the banknote owner?
Not yet. You need to submit your serial number to the database first, using the submission form. There is a process that needs to be followed to protect BOTH bill owners from spammers and scammers. Some tips and suggestions are also given out during this process.
How can I check to see if my bill has a match?
IF your bill is already on the list, there is no need to manually search yourself. The list (also known as the Database) is updated DAILY, and at each update the list is scanned for new matching pairs. When a new matching pair is found, both banknote owners WILL be contacted within 24 hours. The online master list (datebase) is updated less frequently (about every 1 to 2 weeks) as it is a very time consuming task. The list is over 42,000 serial numbers and results in a giant PDF file that is now over 1200 pages!
Will my name or email address ever be shown or shared on this website or the database?
No. Privacy is priority #1. Some people on the list are serious paper money collectors and coin collectors. No one wants to advertise that their home might have valuables in it. Also, no one wants SPAM.
I have a dollar bill... what is it worth.
I have a dollar bill... where can I sell it.
I honestly do not have the time to answer every single email asking me what their bill is worth. This whole project is run by ONE guy. If your bill is a 2013B star note, but there is no match found for it yet it could be worth anywhere from $10 to $40 but it depends very much on how good condition you bill is. If you 2013B star note has an actual match (in the database, or you were informed by the website that you have a match, or you simply imagine you have a match) the value of the PAIR (both bills together) is anywhere from $500 to $25,000 (and possibly more), but it depends on the condition of both bills. Do not believe the myth that every pair is worth $115,000 simply because some YouTube video said so (or some lazy reporter repeated that figure). If you want to find the value of ANYTHING, go to the SOLD listings on eBay and look around.
I see my serial number in the database, but it says "No Email" in the comments column. Why?
Project 2013B started soon after the Zegers/Winograd (Z/W) project ended. I worked closely with the list owner and had a lot of input from him. However he did not share the portion of the list that had the email addresses, over 'privacy' concerns. Apparently some banknote owners didn't want their emails shared, while some owners simply sold or spent their bills once they heard the Z/W project had ended. If the comment "No Email" is next to your serial number, you will need to re-submit your serial number(s) with your current email address that you regularly check. After giving Z/W project members over 2 years to update their info, the serial numbers with no email contact information were PURGED (see The Great Purge of 2023)
Will I be contacted when a bill matching the serial number of my bill is submitted to this site?
Yes! Usually within 24 hours. Once you registered your bill, you don't need to do anything further but wait for email notification when and if a match is found for your bill. This is the main purpose of this site! HOWEVER, if you submitted your serial number(s) through the old Zegers/Winograd project, there is a good chance I do NOT have you email address. The owner of the Zegers/Winograd list did not share the email addresses over 'privacy' concerns. Please refer to this page if that applies to you, or if your serial number in the list shows 'no email' in the comments column for that serial number!
There used to be an online spreadsheet (Google Sheets) that I can no longer access. It says something about violating terms of service. What happened. Where can I see the list of serial numbers?
Google mistakenly marked my spreadsheet as 'Spam' which means that only I can view it, but no one else can. There is an appeal process which I started, but at the time of writing this, the estimate was 5 days, but it has been over 2 months without a word. I cannot trust Google to respond in a timely matter, make the RIGHT decision if the do get back to me, nor risk having them do the same mistake in the future.... So basically I spent close to an entire weekend coding and setting up a NEW home for the database on the website. You can access it at the following link, and you also have the option to download it as a pdf file. The Database
I have a 2013 bill that is in range but it doesn't end with a star. Does this count as anything?
NO.
The error is specific to 2013 B star notes and star notes ONLY.
As quality control finds defective notes in the printing process after the serial number has been overprinted, they are taken out with their serial number written down and replaced with another banknote printed specifically for this purpose, so that the number of banknotes being printed stays the same in each production batch. This saves time and money compared to re-printing exactly the same serial number that was used before. It is rare that the replacement banknote has the same serial number as the original faulty one. A replacement note will have its own serial-numbering system that separates it from the normal numbering system. There is NO direct correlation between a star note and a note that has the same serial number but ends with a letter (no star).
Can I have a spreadsheet copy of your list?
No. I used to be open to this kind of request, but a few very ungrateful, demanding, and possibly mental, people threw a childish tantrum when they didn't get their way, and in one case threatened, "Well, I'm going to make my own online list, and it's going to be bigger than yours.... Waaaaaaagh!"
I found my bill's serial number listed twice in the serial number database (list), but they both have identical front and backplate information! Why?
Duplicate records are no big deal. It would be too time consuming to chase down every single duplicate entry out there. The accuracy of the list matters only when a match is found. Some duplicate entries could be a serial number typo as well, so I will always contact everyone who has an email address tied to a serial number whenever there is a matching pair found for that serial number (this is regardless if they registered their bill today, or 5 years ago). Many times people have either spent a bill they registered on the list, or they sold their bill to someone else. This information is still useful because if a match is found, I at least have a contact of someone who had the bill at some point and may be able to point me to the new owner. I cannot stress enough that when a match is found, it is not simply a matter of there being two emails to send informing the members of their match, followed by responses by BOTH people within a few hours or days. Go see the Matchmaking page for example.
Another possibility is that you submitted the same serial number twice but each time you entered a different email address as your contact info. Owner IDs are automatically generated by taking your email address and making an encrypted non-sensical alpha-numeric 5-6 character code from it. Different email address = Different Owner ID.
I found my bill's serial number has a match on the serial number database (list), but I have not been contacted yet! Why?
This list sometimes is not updated for 2-3 days. I am merely human. Though, I have found that I update the list more frequently when I receive tips. 😁 When I update the database, the new submissions are automatically checked to see if there is a matching serial number. I typically contact the two parties of the matching pair within 10-20 minutes. Another reason is that I DID contact you already but my message is sitting in your email account's SPAM or Junk folder.
I was contacted by Project 2013B that I have a bill that is part of a matching pair and responded, but the owner of the other bill has not responded at all for months/years. What should I do?
It all depends on your level of patience. For the cost of a dollar, you essentially have a lottery ticket to a matching pair that could fets your share to hundreds or thousands of dollars. I have had cases where the other owner finally responded after 3 or 6 months. There is a slight chance the other bill owner spent his bill in which case someone else MIGHT come along and register the bill at this site. Another scenerio which happened was a bill owner was tired of waiting so they sold their bill on Ebay stating that it had a match on this website but with the strong caveat that the other bill owner had still not responded for months. That owner was able to sell his bill for a few hundred dollars, the new owner registered, and about a week later the missing owner finally responded. Now that person really lucked out, so as the mutual fund saying goes, "Past performance is not indicative of future results."
A guy has a 2013B bill for sale that happens to have a match on the 2013B database. Can you contact the bill owner to see if he is only interest in selling or buying?
No. This is a time consuming process, particularly if the owner does not respond for weeks/months. The answer you get is very subject to CHANGE and people change their minds all the time. At one point I had my submission form as people if they were interest in selling, buying or either if the price was right. After that, I got numerous requests to change that piece of information. It was time consuming, and added work in return for little value. As wrestler Ted DiBiase said, "Everyone has a price." Even if I got a response quickly from an owner, I currently have a case where one person has 2 potential matching pairs. He responded to 1 of those, and has not responded to my numerous emails on the other potential matching pair for over 3 months. Some people just seem to drop off the face of the earth.
Is your newsletter free?
Yes!
What is the newsletter about?
The newsletter is simply the blog posts on the main website sent to you via email. Typically they are about recently confirmed matching pairs, any kind of website news regarding issues with the website, or new features, as well as a monthly post showing matching pairs where one or both of the banknote owners have not responded yet to my messages that they have a matching pair.
¿Hablas español? Do you speak spanish?
No, yo no hablo español.What should I do if I sold or spent my bill?
Use the contact link at the end of this page to inform me.... and don't forget to include the serial number affected. Chances are I will leave the entry on my list as I might need to contact you in the future as to who you might of sold your bill to (in case that serial number has a match found in the future). I will mark it in the comments as 'sold', 'spent', etc. There is the added benefit in that anyone looking for that serial number will at least have a warm-fuzzy that the bill EXISTS. Everyday, worn-out and damaged bills get removed from circulation for destruction and replaced by new bills. As time goes by, finding a duplicate serial number pair should become harder and rarer.
Why should I submit/register my bill with Project 2013B?
Project 2013B has some safeguards to protect you from scammers. There is also a growing list of known scammers who have been banned from the list. By not submitting your serial number(s), no one knows about your bills. If you are a 'lurker' that only views the main list and never contributes your serial numbers to it, there is a chance someone else is doing the same exact thing, with BOTH of you unaware the you hold each other's matching bill. There is also no other list this big anywhere on the internet. See my story post called The Lurkers.
But I have thousands of 2013 star notes, and I want to keep MY list to MYSELF!
Cool. It's your choice. Has your list been exposed to over 150,000 page views? Does anyone even know about your list other than maybe people in your collector clique? What exactly are you afraid of? My list is publicly viewable and basically FREE ADVERTISING for your serial number(s), and I actively work on getting even more eyes on this list. I regularly match up people from the general public who do not collect coins, paper money, or even stamps!
I entered a bill on the submission form, but when I click, on the purple submit button, it stays on the same form. Why?
Chances are you entered an invalid email address, or one of the pieces of information you entered are wrong. There should be some red warning text on the form telling you what entry was invalid. Refer to the graphic at the bottom of the submission form. Is your bill really a $1 bill? Is it series 2013? Does it really have a 'B' seal? Does the serial number really start with a B and end with a star?
A long while back I submitted an serial number and got an email confirmation. Why doesn't it do that anymore?
A lot of email providers, even gmail, have limits to how many emails you can send per day, and even per hour. The online submission status page handles this now and is available 24/7, with the added feature of telling you why your bill might of been rejected. Click HERE
I submitted a bill but I don't see it on the main list (database)?
Sometimes the list is not updated for a few days. Before this project started, the prior list was only updated once a month. You can check the status of your submitted bill at this link: Submissions Status The first line of this file shows the last date and time that submitted serial numbers were added to the database, so if you submitted your number AFTER that date and time, it has not been read it yet (give it a day or two). Contributing to the tip jar helps make updates occur more frequently...😁 and probably helps fight climate change.
I checked the Submissions Status link and my bill was rejected! WHY? 😟
A general reason is given in the 6th column on the row that has your serial number. If you need more information, check the spreadsheet tab labelled "WHY".
What is the difference between submitting and registering my bill in this project?
Nothing. I use the words interchangeably. It simply describes getting your serial number(s) into the database (also known as The List).
I have hundreds to 2013B star notes, but I don't want to register them one at a time!
There is a process for bulk submissions if you have 20 or more notes. click here:
I want to sell my bill(s). How do I do that?
If you have a bill that has no matching serial number in the database (list), your best bet is Ebay. Bills are currently selling in the $20-$40 range (rough estimate March 2023). I will buy yours for $5 max.
What is my bill worth?
I am not an appraiser, nor an expert, but I do play one on TV. My rule of thumb is your item (any item) is only worth what you can sell it on Ebay for. Do a search on ebay, but select SOLD listings, to see what similar bills have sold for. DO NOT search the current active listings, as some prices are way out to lunch, and some listings simply do not find a buyer. One seller is actively listing his 2013 bills for over $1000 EACH, and NONE of the serial numbers he has for sale have a match in my database. Read this post on how to avoid getting scammed when it comes to 2013 B star notes: PSA: Avoid these Ebay scams regarding 2013 star notes!
Will you buy my bill?
Yeah... how about $5?
How much is a match pair worth?
The real value is when BOTH banknotes are TOGETHER, and not owned seperately. Once they are in the hands of one owner (or an auction site), the value will depend HEAVILY on condition. The only guide we currenly have is my list of past auctions which I update as I find new auctions of matched pairs. That list can be found by clicking the 'Auction History' button at the bottom of this page, or click HERE
Why are there some serial numbers that have more than one Forth Worth (FW) or Washington (DC) entry in the list?
Sometimes bills are spent or sold, and the new bill owner submits the serial number under their own email address (as they should). For me to check every instance of this would be a collasal waste of time. It would require each person to respond to my email, the new bill owner would have to send me a photo to prove they own the bill, if the photo was too blurry it would require another email, and at the end of the day the accuracy of the list ONLY MATTERS WHEN A MATCHING PAIR IS DISCOVERED. At that point, everyone connected to the serial number in question is contacted, and asked for photo proof of their bill. The list could be 100% accurate but a millisecond later one or more bill owners could simply spend or sell their bill and not notify me.
I made a typo in the bill information I submitted! What should I do?
Use the Contact link at the end of this page. If it is something minor like your backplate number is off by 1 (you entered 85 instead of 86), or you have a Fort Worth bill where you entered FW107 instead of FWE107, I would not worry too much about it as long as the type of bill (FW or DC) is correct in the 'DC or FW' (3rd) column is correct on the published list.
How can I help you? Can I help update the list?
Having more than one person update the list would add A LOT of complexity on my end since portions of the update process are automated, and there would be too many opportunities for things to either be duplicated or lost in the cracks. Quite honestly, it would become a nightmare.
How you can really help is:
- Spread the word about Project 2013B with friends, relatives, enemies, forums, social media, Twitter, facebook, and any group forums/chats you are part of. Feel free to share the link (or copy the text) of the main 'About page' located HERE or share this easy to remember short link bit.ly/2013error
- Tips are always good. Even a basic $2 tip gets me super motivated! Trivia: Oddly enough, the few tips I get are mostly from people that do not have a match found for their bill, compared to over 90 people that I have matched up.
- In the future I plan to set up a page with banners and images you can share to help promote this project. Check back here, or subscribe to the newsletter as I will announce it there when it happens.
- Visit my website. More traffic gets the site noticed. Also look around for new features being added. Heck, there is now a spot where you can now play Pac-man for free now!
- Visit my Collector Resources page for your paper-money and numismatic supplies and guides.
- Contact me if you find any broken links on this site.
I haven't found an answer to my question!
Refer to this post that fully describes Project 2013B: About 2013B
If there is still no answer to be found to your question, then contact me here: Contact
Last updated: January 17, 204
Protect Your Banknotes
Protect your bills from the oils on your fingerprints, other environmental hazards, and any further wear and tear. Condition is everything when it comes to collectable banknotes! These also add a layer of protection should you ever have to ship your bill. Check them out in Collector Resources or click the image to go straight to the my preferred top-load rigid holders.
