Money Marks (Chop Marks) Still Finding Them. Still collecting them.
The singular most popular thing on my blog is the money stamps. It doesn’t lead to any traffic to the rest of my art/life but there are still tons of other humans out there trying to figure out what the heck these things are.
This morning I realized that I had a bunch of 20s in a drawer that I had been gathering for when I could get around to photographing them. I would like to use that money for things so today is the day they got photographed!
I have a folder of unpublished ones somewhere else so I will try and find that and add it to the 20s.
Usually when I post these I post links to the older ones that I have posted here but I can’t figure out how that works anymore so you will have to google if you would like to see more.
To preemptively answer the questions again. No, I still have not figured out who does this or why. At this point I have pretty much given up thinking that I will figure it out. I just enjoy finding them and continue to wonder why so few people actually notice them.
Are you sick of these yet? I am going to keep photographing them and posting them when people send photos to me.
Other questions I have gotten on these.
I have been asked if the stamps make them more valuable. Definitely not. They are still only worth face value and the bank periodically will tell me that it is illegal to mark currency even though they continue to give me bills with stamps and have never refused a deposit that contained them.
Do I know who is doing this or what they mean. no. I mention that every time I post these (sometimes more than once) but no, I still have no idea who is doing this or why.
yes, I have been told that money exchangers in other countries with stamp the bills after they have verified that they are genuine so they don’t have to check them again but it still seems highly improbable to me that this many of the bills that wind up in my pocket have been through a foreign country. That may be the reason for some of them, but it doesn’t explain all of them.
Also these stamps do not indicate that the bills are registered with Where’s George. Those bills are very clearly marked and I have checked their database randomly to see if the bills that I find stamped are registered there and none of them every have been.
Other than that, all I can say is please keep using cash. Businesses get hit harder than you realize for credit card processing. It is a frustrating necessary business expense but we appreciate when we don’t have to do it.
thank you for visiting
and if you have bills you would like to send me – snap a photograph and send them to me at justteejay@gmail.com Please do not photo the entire bill as if I have to put them into photoshop it shuts down if it detects a bill.
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Update Feb 8th 2022
Found another one and had another one emailled to me.
Just TeeJay's Blog 
Very interesting! I’m going to go look at my paper money!
Let me know if you find any! They tend to be more prevalent on higher denomination bills (well up to $100 anyhow I have never encountered a bill larger than that so I wouldn’t know past that).
I love your work on chop marks. I spent some time appreciating your blog with some amazing drawings. You are quite a talent.
Here is your page blog posting about marks on bills. (from 2010)
https://justteejay.blog/2010/05/11/stamps-and-marks-on-money/
I have a twenty with a anchor ⚓ on it.
I swear I never find any of these. I feel like I’m so unobservant!…… I’m off to go rummage through my purse….
I kind of am fascinated by chop marks. When I mention the foriegn exchange or casino theory currency authentication idea as the reason for these I tend to get the most aggreement, but then there is a person that insists the drug cartels stamp their money so they can track it better if they get robbed or otherwize comprimized with someone taking “their” money.
The person that stongly holds this view lives in Texas not so far from the border and he is adamant that these symbols are drug cartel money. But that makes no sense to me. I have always heard that criminals are not big fans of any money getting traced to them. Why in the world would a mighty drug cartel decide to stamp all of their currency with a particular stamp … so the Feds could trace it back to them? That makes no sense to me at all. But the person insists that they see a ton of chop marks in the border cities and that it the common impression.
The mystery continues ….
Keep in mind if you’re new to looking, you have a way better chance the higher the denomination.
Also, a vast majority I’ve found have always been on the reverse side of the bill.