Well, I just saw this topic, and I have a story to tell. It makes me sick everytime I think about it. Maybe this will help dispell the feeling. Anyway.... My husband's uncle had a safe deposit box full of paper currency. He had cashed his mother's checks for years since 1930 and put the cash in an envelope, then put the envelope in the safe deposit box. He did not trust banks at all, since he was in the depression when he was like 20. Of course, he got old, and my husbands sister was in charge of his estate. He died, and she took all of the paper money notes out of the safe deposit box. I knew that the Uncle had paper currency from long ago because I had asked him about it and he told me, but I had never seen the money or the dates on it. I do know, there were paper notes from the time when the banks printed their own money. Well.... I told her I would write her a check for all the money in the safe deposit box if I could just look at the money and pull out the old bills. Being Swedish, she said no, because the money needed to go into the bank right away. I begged this lady, I even had my husband tell her 'no' do not do that because the bills are worth more than face value. She told me to mind my own business and ran to the bank anyway with about $40,000.00 in bills. ...... I could have fainted. If I could scream, "What an A$$" . I couldn't even do that much. I was sick for weeks. To this day, I cannot even talk to this woman or her husband. What fools. I even had the coin dealer in town ready to help me sell the notes and sort them out. Could you imagine the bank tellers, especially if they knew anything about paper money? They had a hey day....Please tell me I dreamed the whole thing. !!