You know you’d love to collect, but you just don’t have the time. Well, what if I told you that you can attain quite a collection by taking just a few seconds out of your busy day? Because you can, with a little process I call SCANning.

Finally, look at your Nickels. The main reason is that they’ve been basically the same since 1938. This allows you to find some really old coins really easily. Most likely, the oldest find will be 1939, because the 1938’s were rather scarce, but that and 1940 are common old dates to find. Personally, I keep anything before 1960. Even more exciting with nickels is finding special World War II 35% silver ones. They were made from mid-1942 through 1945, and a re easily identifiable by a large mint mark over the Monticello’s dome on the reverse. They’re not found often, but they are findable.

All that SCANning can be done in a few seconds when a cashier hands you your change. And it’s as easy as Silver, Canada, Anything different, and Nickels. New we will move on to the bills, which take a little longer but are more rewarding.

Perhaps the easiest part of SCANning bills is looking for Star notes. These bills, of all denominations, are different because they have a single star in place of the ending letter of the serial number. They are replacement bills, bills that the Treasury prints up in order to replace bills that are worn out or torn up. They’re easily findable, yet they’re not all that common, so save them. They all command a premium, especially higher denominations. It’s hard to save them all, but try to keep all one-dollar and definitely all two-dollar star notes. It’s also a good idea to keep at least one star note from each series in each denomination, if you can both afford and find them.

This next SCAN will make casual collecting a breeze: check the Corner. More specifically, check the bottom-right corner on the front. This allows you to check three things at once: the series/signature, the serial number, and, on one-dollar bills, to see if you have a "web bill". When you look at the series, look for anything before 1995. This gets easier and less time consuming if you learn to identify the signatures of the different series. Anything that’s not "Robert E. Rubin" or "Lawrence H. Summers" should qualify for older than series 1995. I keep all one dollar bills before 1995, and one of each series from the higher denominations (a star note if I can find one). After seeing the year, look at the serial number. Here, you can give a quick check for star or radar notes, as well as any other combination that interests you. Lastly, glance at the tiny plate number on one-dollar bills from series 1988A, 1993, and 1995. If all you see is a numeral, without ANY letters, then you have a web bill. These were made on an experimental web-fed printing press. They’re usually worth at least three dollars and they’re findable. Other ways to know if you have a web bill are to look at the tiny plate numbers on the front in the top left corner and on the back. Web bills have NO tiny number or letter in the upper-left on the front, and the number on the back appears to the right of "IN GOD WE TRUST", instead of in the lower-right of the white space surrounding "ONE".

Again, as with coins, save Anything different. This could be a bill that’s noticeably a different size (watch for counterfeits) or color, or a bill with unusual printing. Obviously, this category includes errors, just like coins. Look for double printing, wrong-side and flipped printing, and even different serial numbers on the same bill. Something specific here is finding a different color serial number and Federal Reserve seal. The common color is green, used for modern Federal Reserve Notes. But sometimes, you might find a red or blue seal with matching numbers. Red seals indicate older U.S. Notes, which have been out of print for over thirty years. Look for this on two-dollar bills mostly, but know that all denominations are potential U.S. notes. Blue seals mean silver certificates, last used in the sixties. These were redeemable for silver dollars until they went out of circulation, and later for a bag of silver shards. Nowadays, they can’t be redeemed for any silver, but are useable at face value, like all U.S. currency ever printed. Look for this on one-dollar bills mostly, but know that all denominations are potential silver certificates. Golden-brown seals were used for gold certificates, but these extremely hard to find in circulation. Keep them ALL, even though they may not be very valuable yet. And keep anything that looks different.

Last, but not least, with SCANning your bills is to check the serial Number. Look for radar notes, which are the same forwards and backwards, as well as four-digit repeat notes, with something like "26492649". There are other possibilities, too, such as sequential bills (ex: 87654321), or even your phone number. Also check for low serial numbers starting with at least four zeros. Bills with five starting zeros sometimes go for exorbitant amounts of money. If you find any numeric combo that interests you, keep it. Letters usually don’t matter when looking at the serial number, except for star notes.

So remember how to SCAN bills- Star notes, Corner-checking, Anything different, and serial Numbers. Again, all this can be done in a few seconds when you get your change in your hand. And thus you can become the "casual collector" by taking a few seconds to SCAN your money.

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