Two Dollar Bills, Canceled With Stamps

No doubt there is not really any monetary value to these (other than $2 each,) but has anyone seen something along these lines before?

Sort of like a bizarre FDC or something?

Just curious how these came to be.

Hi

These stamps were cancelled by the post office on the first day of issue of the two dollar bills.

I made several of them myself. A trip to the bank and a trip to the post office.

Might want to search places like ebay to see if there is any premium associated with them in 2020.

Jim

Bad memories....
My sister, trying to be sweet and support my 'strange' hobbies, went to the PO and had one of these cancelled for me. She stuck the postmarked bill it in a plain envelope and gave it to me that year on my birthday. I carelessly torn into the envelope and ripped the bill into two! Doh. I felt like a real jerk and to this day still feel guilty about it.
Don

This is what Wikipedia says...

"On November 3, 1975, Secretary of the Treasury William E. Simon announced the reissuance of the $2 note as a cost-saving measure; the new $2 notes would be available from banks on April 13, 1976, Thomas Jefferson's birthday. Series 1976 $2 bills were partially redesigned and reissued as a Federal Reserve Note. The note retains the same portrait of Jefferson, and the basic design of the obverse remains unchanged since 1928. The treasury seal and serial numbers are printed in green ink, replacing the red used on the previous United States Note. Since the reintroduction of the note coincided with the United States Bicentennial, it was decided to use a bicentennial-themed design on the reverse. The bill was not issued specifically to celebrate the bicentennial, as is widely assumed. An engraved rendition (not an exact reproduction) of John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence replaced Monticello on the reverse. First-day issues of the new $2 bills could be taken to a post office and stamped with the date "APR 13 1976". In all, 590,720,000 notes from Series 1976 were printed.
Currently, stamped Series 1976 $2 notes typically trade for about twice their face value. If the bills were stamped in a city with an unusual name, the value may be slightly higher. However, no first-day-issued 1976 $2 bills with postage stamps are especially rare or valuable."

Thanks all. As I said above, I knew they are not worth much, was just more curious about the history (and thank you Linus/James/51) for the stories!

Might be a fun "Cinderella" to combine two hobbies at some point by collecting different cities.

In April, 1976 I was living in London, but was visiting Los Angeles, where I had lived previously, and to which I would later return. April 13th happens to be my birthday (also Thomas Jefferson's) so I went to a bank, Gilmore Bank right next to the famous Farmer's Market at 3rd and Fairfax in LA, got a few of the new $2 bills, and took them to a nearby post office and had a couple of them postmarked. A lot of the facilities around Farmer's Market were also named Gilmore, there was a Gilmore Petroleum gas station there, and Gilmore Field, a minor league baseball stadium where the Pacific Coast League Hollywood Stars played back in the days before LA got its own major league teams.

Postmarked bills like this are really only of interest to philatelic collectors. Paper money collectors view them as damaged currency, worth exactly face value. Unpopular perception on this forum, but true.

These Bicentennial $2 FRNs show up in dealer price lists and at coin & currency shows usually from 1.5X to 2X face value. There are both stamp and coin collectors who collect these by state or locality and several I've run across in the last 30 years who are gathering as many different as they can find. A complete set of State Flag stamps from 1976 canceled on the notes is a desirable goal for some. Certainly not a market but they have a hidden following.