Did you know the Federal Reserve issues a $2 bill? Of course you did. (Steve Wozniak sure does.) That puts you one up on the guy I just talked to at local WaMu branch.
I need to buy a bunch of dueces; never mind why. First stop was a Citibank branch, where I was told they didn’t have any. But if I wanted to order some, I’d need to get a “brick” of them, costing $2000. Umm, no.
So I went across the street to WaMu. I told the guy that I wanted to buy some $2 bills. He told me they only sold them in rolls of 25. No no no. Two. Dollar. Bills. Not a roll of dollar coins (although that would be interesting on another day). Bills. Currency. Two Dollars.
He looked at me as though I was trying to scam him, or at least put him in a Borat movie. He eventually relented and consulted with someone else. No, of course. No $2 bills. Not even an offer of ordering any.
Looks like it’ll be a trip downtown to the Federal Reserve itself; I understand there’s a public teller desk where one can buy such things. But I wonder: when WaMu does its training, do they consider it too elementary to talk about the denominations of legal currency in the United States?
Update: Turns out the Fed won’t actually do that; they don’t have a teller window. The choices are to find a bank that has them, persuade a bank to order them, or order a sheet from the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, which charges a significant premium over face value.