Vintage 💵 2 1970s $100 Bill Keychain Fobs SIMMONS – Pair

What Does the Little Seal Next to Ben Franklin Mean? 💵 Vintage 1970s $100 Bill Keychain Fobs, Pair

Size: 1 1/2" x 5/8"

Look at the little seal to the left of Ben Franklin. It holds the letter A, for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the city where Franklin was born. These two SIMMONS key fobs carry a golden picture of the $100 bill Americans handled for decades, the one with the lettered seal, before the 1996 redesign changed the Benjamin.

Pair of vintage 1970s $100 bill keychain fobs, each stamped SIMMONS on the back. You receive both fobs shown. Size: each measures about 1 1/2" x 5/8" (not including the top loop).

What Is on the Fobs

Each fob is a slim gold-tone rectangle with a small ring at one end. The front holds a gold-toned picture of a $100 Federal Reserve Note under a clear window, framed by a dark brown border inside a gold-tone rim. The picture is sharp enough to read: FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE across the top, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA beneath it, Benjamin Franklin in his oval at the center, ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS along the bottom and 100 in every corner. The lettered seal with its A sits at left, and at right, under WASHINGTON, D.C., is the Treasury seal. The back is brushed, textured gold-tone metal with SIMMONS stamped in small capitals near the bottom edge.

Condition

Clean gold-tone finish with no corrosion. Clear front window over the $100 bill image, brushed-texture metal back. The back is stamped SIMMONS; some stamps are crisper than others from the original run.

Keyring note: sold without keyrings, so you can add your own split ring, chain or clip and customize them. 😉

The $100 Bill Pictured Here

Benjamin Franklin has been on the front of the $100 bill since 1914. In 1929 all U.S. currency changed to its current size and a standardized design, and from the Series 1928 notes onward the $100 showed Franklin in a central oval with Independence Hall on the back. Beginning with Series 1963A the words "will pay to the bearer on demand" were removed from the front and IN GOD WE TRUST was added to the back. Series 1990 brought microscopic printing around the portrait and a metallic security strip. Then came the major redesign announced on March 25, 1996, which replaced each bank's lettered seal, like the A on these fobs, with a single Federal Reserve System seal. The current $100, with its blue 3D security ribbon, entered circulation on October 8, 2013.

A Is for Boston

The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 split the country into twelve districts, each served by its own reserve bank, and until the 1996 redesign every note carried its district's letter in a seal: A for Boston, B for New York, on through L for San Francisco. The note pictured on these fobs is an A note. That suits its subject. Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1706, ran away to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at seventeen, and built his fortune there as a printer before he ever became a statesman.

The Saying Franklin Never Said

The line everyone hangs on him, "A penny saved is a penny earned," is folklore. What Franklin actually printed, in the 1737 edition of Poor Richard's Almanack under "Necessary Hints to Those That Would Be Rich," was "A penny saved is two pence clear." His 1758 almanac came closer, ending the line with "a penny got," and even that echoed the poet George Herbert, whose Outlandish Proverbs of 1640 has "A penny spar'd is twice got." The "earned" version is an anonymous English proverb, first recorded in 1804.

Never Give an Empty Wallet

Money has its own folk rules, and one of the best known is never to give someone an empty wallet or purse. Tuck a coin or a bill inside, the tradition says, because money attracts money and emptiness attracts emptiness. Folklore archives at the University of Southern California and Dartmouth have both collected the belief from people who learned it at home. A $100 bill that rides along on your keys is an easy way to keep the custom every day.

The Benjamins

The $100 is the bill that changed from pocket money into the currency of big numbers. Americans call them "Benjamins." As of June 30, 2012, the $100 made up 77% of all U.S. currency in circulation, and research estimated that 80 percent of $100 bills were held in other countries. A little gold Benjamin on a keychain is a joke everybody gets.

💵 About these

The supply is finite - once these last 1970s Simmons fob pairs are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.