Many of my weekends as a 5 year old kid were spent going to whatever local collectors shows were on that weekend with my dad. Minerals, trading cards, coins + currency, you name it.
While I appreciated the coins and currencies from across the world and centuries past, one dealer had something that really caught my eye - Disney Dollars. They looked just like real money, but the portraits proudly depicted my beloved Disney characters posing in place of presidents, and the reverses had scenes from the theme parks I loved rather than the Illuminati's all-seeing eye. And of course, treasurer Scrooge McDuck's signature guaranteed each note.
At the Disney parks, you could exchange your US Dollars for Disney Dollars on Main Street with a 1-1 exchange rate, and the new bills could be spent on Disney property just like real money (but more fun). And you bet, when we took our vacation to Disney World, the first thing I did was race to Main Street to get an envelope of crisp bills for my collection. At that time, there were only a few variations to collect since their inception in 1987. But Disney continued to print new series with more characters and designs until 2016, making this a fun and challenging set to complete.
Higher denominations were less common, and some later years often had smaller print runs, so there is a range of rarity and value dependent on the bill. There were only a couple of $50 bill designs, made in extremely limited quantities, as most tourists were not looking to arbitrage large amounts of cash on top of their entry ticket price, so these are usually considered the grails of this collecting niche.
For serious Disney Dollar collectors, a lot comes down to serial number and grade. Completionists will attempt to collect each of the serial number designations for each bill - usually there would be three distinct serial number designations, depending on where the bill was distributed: D for Disney World, A for Disneyland (Anaheim), and T if the bill originated from an offsite Disney Store. There are a few year/designations that likely only had a few sheets reach distribution, so though nearly identical to another bill with the same design, will fetch prices miles above them as it is the same few bills that are missing from most near-complete sets. Some collectors also covet low serial numbers, proofs, high grades or other small distinctions that may set a bill apart from others with the same design.
Grading is a similar process as with cards or coins, and Disney Dollars are recognized as legitimate bills from the major grading companies. The currency grading scale is like coins, where a perfect bill would be given a score of 70, and anything in the high 60s is considered a great grade.
Here is a trio that is special to me. This is a set of three bills, a $1, $5, and $10 from 1990, which display the original 1987 design that spanned the first decade or so of bills before they changed it up. However, the serial numbers on these three match - they are all D00000728A, a seemingly random number, but a special one if you are born on July 28th, like me. To find the 3 matching bills with this extremely low number, and have them all come back with the same GEM 65 grade, seems like a little bit of Mickey's magic. For me, it is fun to find distinctions among what is uniform to the non-collector's eye, assert meaning in the randomness, and find new ways to collect old things.
