Collectors are going absolutely bananas over a $20 bill!
A $20 bill with a Del Monte banana sticker permanently stuck to it — with the U.S. Treasury marking and serial number printed over the top — has a current ‘high bid’ of over $125,000 on Heritage Auctions.
The bill, dubbed “The Del Monte Note,” was first found by a college student from Ohio in 2004, after apparently withdrawing the bill from an ATM. The banana sticker is located to the right of President Andrew Jackson’s head, the result of an obstruction during printing.
The student first auctioned off the bill on eBay, where it sold for around $10,000. It last sold for $25,300 in 2006, according to a press release.
“Collectors immediately fell in love with it,” Dustin Johnston, Vice President of Currency Auctions at Heritage Auctions, said in a statement. “The placement of the ‘Del Monte Ecuador’ banana sticker is ideal because it covers part of the printing details and is overlaid by part of the Treasury Seal and the bill’s serial number.”
There’s been a number of bills released with similar obstructions during the printing process. Other’s include a Band-Aid, wood shavings and paper fragments, according to Heritage Auctions. Heritage Auctions says the banana bill’s obstruction happened during the three-part currency printing process.
“The objects we see that obstruct ink in the printing process include mostly debris from the printing floor. This debris rarely stays affixed to the notes, and this is no debris; it is a foreign object that should have never made it onto the printing floor,” Johnston said.