Are $2 Bills Unlucky?

$2 notes have long been considered bad luck in the US. The way to remove the bad luck was to tear a corner off the note. Does this make any sense? Yes, it does. Here's why.

$2 notes have been produced by the US Treasury, off and on, since the 1860s. And, repeatedly in the 20th century, the Treasury has pushed hard to popularize them as it would save printing costs as one $2 note takes the place of two $1 notes. However, this was never successful, and many people just argued the old belief that the notes were bad luck. And, the Treasury usually got stuck with a lot of notes returned to it with a corner torn off.

It appears that this bad luck stigma arose in the late 19th century when $1 and $2 notes started to be placed in cash register drawers. Both notes tended to be placed in the same slot. So, it was easy to confuse the notes. The same confusion appeared to be happening on the consumer side as $1s and $2s were comingled. So, you could end up giving a $2 when you meant to give a $1, losing a $1 in the process. This was certainly bad luck.

How do you avoid this confusion? Tear a corner off of the $2 note, differentiating it from a $1 note and avoiding the bad luck of paying it out by mistake.

So, a $2 note could be bad luck, but you fixed it by altering it.

By the way, I appeared in an entertaining documentary on the $2 bill, which is available on YouTube.