1981 $5 Bill Value

Greysheet's retail range for a regular Series 1981 note from any district is $5 to $24. The low end is a circulated note, which is to say spending money. 1981A regular notes run $10 to $36 for most districts, with Kansas City (J) at $45 to $60 and a few districts listed with ceilings up to $225 in top grades.

A Series 1981 serial number has three parts. A prefix letter, A through L, which repeats the district letter in the seal. Eight digits. And a suffix letter that advances with each new block of serial numbers.

On a star note, the star takes the place of that suffix letter. So a New York star reads B, eight digits, then a star. Check both serial numbers on the face; they are identical, and a star on one means a star on the other. If the last character is a letter, it is a regular note and the first table above is the whole story.

This is the table that matters. Stars were only 0.75 percent of Series 1981 production, and they were not spread evenly. The uspapermoney.info tables list exact counts per district, and Greysheet's prices follow them closely.

Find the letter in the black seal left of Lincoln, then find it below.

Sixteen thousand notes. That is a tiny run by any modern standard, and Greysheet does not price it at all, which usually means sales are too rare to average.

If you find a 1981 $5 with a serial starting A and ending in a star, do not sell it to the first buyer who offers $100. Check auction archives for graded examples, and consider grading it yourself. Our where to sell guide covers which venues handle modern rarities well.

Series 1981A replacement notes were printed only for New York (1,920,000) and San Francisco (3,200,000). Greysheet lists the New York star at $90 to $100 and the San Francisco star at $90 to $115.

A 1981A star with any other district letter does not exist in the printing records. If you think you have one, the most likely explanation is that the note is actually a Series 1981.

Star notes were printed to replace sheets that failed inspection, and the star runs assigned to each district did not follow the size of its regular printing. That is how Boston, a mid sized district, ended up with only 16,000 Series 1981 stars while New York got almost four million.

For collectors, the result is that star value tracks the printage table, not the district's size. The two cheapest stars on Greysheet, Chicago and San Francisco at $48 to $60, had 1.28 and 1.79 million printed. The most expensive priced star, Minneapolis at $205 to $280, had 128,000. Look up your letter, not your city.

The 1981A printing was about half the size of 1981, and a few districts were small. Minneapolis (I) got 19.2 million notes, Philadelphia (C) 25.6 million, and St. Louis (H) 32 million, against 150.4 million for San Francisco.

Greysheet reflects that unevenly. Kansas City (J), with 48 million printed, is listed at $45 to $60, the highest floor of any regular 1981A. Five districts, Boston, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Dallas and San Francisco, carry ceilings up to $225 for top grade notes. The remaining six top out at $36. A crisp 1981A from Kansas City is the one regular note in this series worth setting aside.

Series 1981 carries the signature of Treasurer Angela Buchanan with Treasury Secretary Donald Regan. Series 1981A switched to Treasurer Katherine Ortega with Regan. Both are confirmed in Wikipedia's history of the five. The signatures are how you tell the two series apart if the letter after 1981 is hard to read on a worn note.

Otherwise the design is the classic Lincoln five used until the 1999 redesign: Lincoln on the face, the Lincoln Memorial with IN GOD WE TRUST on the back. If yours says 1950 or earlier, see the 1950 $5 guide instead.

Every price on this page assumes the note is crisp. A 1981 star that spent years in wallets is worth far less than the top of its range, and a heavily worn common star may only bring a small premium over face.

For stars in the $48 to $125 band, eBay works well because buyers search by series and district. For the Minneapolis star or anything from the A star run, compare auction records first and consider grading. A buyer paying hundreds for a modern note wants a third party grade, and the holder usually pays for itself at that level.

One more check costs nothing: compare the two serial numbers on the face. They should be identical. A note where they differ is a mismatched serial error, a different and much more valuable thing than anything in the tables above. Our mismatched serial number guide explains how to confirm one.

Look at the serial number twice. Beyond stars, any 1981 $5 can carry a fancy pattern: a solid number, a ladder, a radar, or a very low serial. Those premiums apply regardless of series. The fancy serial number guide lists them, and low serial numbers covers notes numbered under 100.

A plain 1981 $5 with no star and no pattern is worth five dollars. That is not a failure; it is how almost every one of them turns out.