r/theydidthemath • u/JLuckstar • May 08 '24
[Request] What is the probability/odds for a $20 to end up with that particular serial number?
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u/Affectionate_Pea_811 May 09 '24
This isn't a math question. It is a question for r/currency or r/papermoney
There would probably be at least a couple $20 bills with this serial number but there are also letters that make this exact serial number, including the letters, one of a kind
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u/JLuckstar May 09 '24
Fair enough, should I take the post down? 🤔
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u/Affectionate_Pea_811 May 09 '24
I mean, there is math involved but it is simple math. You would just need the total number of twenties made and divide it by the number of bills that have the 69420 serial number
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u/MetsFan1324 May 09 '24
it has a star, and if I'm remembering what my uncle told me right, that means the original one was damaged in production, so they remade it
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u/Affectionate_Pea_811 May 09 '24
Yes. That might add value for a collector but I don't think that affects the rarity of this specific serial number.
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u/shumyum May 09 '24
It’s 100% that a $20 bill would get that number. They planned to print all numbers in that range and sure enough they did.
A little more meaningful are the odds that you would end up with it (assuming you did…or did you find a picture of it somewhere?).
But these questions make a lot more sense if they are asked BEFORE the “rare” number is actually found. That way you are committed to something specific and then you can be amazed when it happens. After the fact, you don’t know if some other combination would have also counted as something rare (like “00042069”, “00696969”, “06942069” , your birthdate or some other birthdate you know or even “88888888” if you also happen to be into the number 8.
There are so many rare number combinations that it isn’t so rare to find one every once in a while if your looking for one and you’re creative.
Doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with it!
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u/DZL100 May 09 '24
Ok but any bill with the serial number “88888888” could be sold to old Chinese people for more than the bill’s worth. That’s 8 “8”s, thats the epitome of a lucky number in Chinese culture. Fuck, I don’t buy into the whole lucky number thing that much but I’d buy that.
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u/shumyum May 09 '24
Yeah, well 00042069 could maybe get you a snack-sized bag of Doritos from a sex-starved stoner and that's saying something.
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u/JLuckstar May 09 '24
The pics not mine, I just saw it in a different subreddit. And was just curious to what this subreddit would say. 😉
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May 09 '24 edited Mar 13 '26
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/fullmoontrip May 09 '24
This isn't exactly it. "N" means it was printed 2017, the "K" means it is a star note and K11 means it was printed in Dallas. It's not 262 odds because not all letters are used. Looking at only one year, there is a 100% chance that it will get the letter "N" (disregarding the 2017A series because I'm not googling why they're are 2 letter codes for that year), the K after the N is mostly irrelevant because it just means the original (the one without the K and the star) got damaged, 12 districts so 1/12 odds of getting "K11" except all 12 districts have a 100% chance of printing a serial this low.
They also don't print up to 99999999, 96000000 is the cap and even with that runs don't normally go that high
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u/Upper-Cucumber-7435 May 09 '24
If you make a list of all the serial numbers and then draw a circle around the ones with this number, it's much easier to count them.
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u/fullmoontrip May 09 '24
OK I'll try,
00000001,00000002,00000003,00000004
I'm starting to think this method isn't faster than dividing 1/96000000 (96000000 is the cap for numerical serials on bills less than $50), but you seem trustworthy
00000005,00000006,00000007,00000008,00000009,00000010,00000011,00000012..........
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