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In Amazing Spider-Man #39, a disguised Norman Osborne (the Green Goblin) hires a bunch of hit-men to take on Spider-Man and does it by giving them half the money now. Literally: he splits the bills in half.

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Assuming that the hit-men got their money, they would tape the dollar bills back together. Would this still make the bills legal tender? Or is this something that would only work in fiction?

Thunderforge
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  • I've never understood this procedure. The hirer loses his money either way. Seems a thoroughly irrational way to do business of any kind. – user207421 May 31 '16 at 05:03
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    @EJP Well, it's coming from an insane super-villain in a comic book about a man who wears a red arachnid-themed costume while he swings on homemade string throughout New York to fight other people in brightly colored costumes. Honestly, this is some of the least irrational stuff that we've seen in this comic. – Thunderforge May 31 '16 at 05:12
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    @EJP: It makes a lot of sense if the hirer cares little about the money but cares a lot about the job getting done. The hit-men have every incentive to do their job, with one common obstacle ("Will I get paid? Won't the hirer just keep the money? I can't sue him since we're all criminals...") removed. – Heinzi May 31 '16 at 05:59
  • Fun question! A torn US bill also plays a role in the plot of the Paraguayan film 7 Boxes. – BrenBarn May 31 '16 at 06:49
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    See also https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/34018/can-i-cash-in-a-ripped-bill — I heard long ago that ≥2/5 of a bill counts as half and ≥3/5 counts as the whole, but apparently that's not accurate. – Anton Sherwood May 31 '16 at 07:50
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    @EJP No, the hirer loses his money only if the contractor fails to deliver. If the deal goes right, you can't call money paid for delivered service as "lost"! This is basically an agent-less escrow. The very point of it is that money is made unavailable to both sides if they refuse to cooperate. – Agent_L May 31 '16 at 11:31
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    @EJP: it does at least make a little more sense than "half up front and half on delivery", in which case the hirer loses the first half of the money either way and the hitman gains half the money by betraying. It also makes more sense for the hitman than "nothing until after delivery", since then the hirer makes a profit by betraying, so one might imagine certain hitmen will not accept those terms. If someone is holding usable money they can profit by betrayal. So it may be irrational, but all other available options are also irrational in this sense. – Steve Jessop May 31 '16 at 12:30
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    @SteveJessop the "half" money is still usable to the Green Goblin. He can take his "escrow halves" and use it to pay off a separate team of hitmen for a job on Superman - on the same "conditions". – emory May 31 '16 at 15:54
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    @emory He could, except Superman doesn't exist in the Marvel universe. ;-) – Thunderforge May 31 '16 at 15:56
  • @Thunderforge Then how did Superman meet Spider-Man? http://i.stack.imgur.com/v5a2D.jpg – JTP - Apologise to Monica May 31 '16 at 21:52
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    @JoeTaxpayer Answered for you at SciFi Stack Exchange! – Thunderforge May 31 '16 at 22:53
  • @Thunderforge - and once again, my internet friends (even those I've just met) impress me more than my IRL ones. I appreciate the effort. Great post, there. – JTP - Apologise to Monica Jun 01 '16 at 00:14
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    @emory: good point, Green Goblin should have cut the money in front of the hitman, or at least demonstrated that he had both halves in hand. Just from this panel, his claim that he ever had the other half is suspect, never mind his claim that he'll keep hold of it to pay on completion. If the hitmen's union (or just general knowledge of the technique) prevented GG from using his halves a second time, then the hitman would have nothing to fear in that respect. – Steve Jessop Jun 01 '16 at 14:10
  • @SteveJessop in theory if the Green Goblin's half is 50.0000001% of the bill, he can redeem it for a new bill w/out the other 49.999999%. To guard against this, the hitmen should insist on choosing which half of the bill they get. – emory Jun 02 '16 at 00:53
  • @emory: that theory seems wrong, since the US treasury requires "clearly more than 50 percent", and I doubt they measure to sufficient precision to judge that 50.0000001% is clearly more than 50%. The hitman shouldn't take the small side of a 60/40, though. – Steve Jessop Jun 02 '16 at 09:20
  • Same rules apply here in europe. Everything below 51% is just a piece of paper – BlueWizard May 22 '17 at 06:53

4 Answers4

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Assuming both halves have the same serial number printed on them, yes - a glued back together torn bill would be valid. You may exchange it at any US bank. If banks don't want to deal with that - send it to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP). If you only have one half, and it is exactly one half - then it is useless. That is why the person in the comics said that his halves are useless to him. The banks or the BEP will want at least most of the paper currency to replace it.

The act itself (tearing the physical currency intentionally) is a felony with up to 5 years in the Federal prison.

Thunderforge
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littleadv
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    So the hit man also needs a non-suspicious explanation as to how this stack of bills accidentally got sliced exactly in half. "You see, I was chopping vegetables for dinner with a very sharp knife, and this stack of cash just happened to be sitting next to the cutting board..." – Nate Eldredge May 31 '16 at 01:28
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    With all the illegal super-villain stuff that the Green Goblin has done over the years, I'm sure that intentionally mutilating money is the least of his concerns when he goes to prison for his crimes. – Thunderforge May 31 '16 at 01:44
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    @NateEldredge No, the prosecutor needs evidence that the hit man sliced the money. Mere possession is not evidence. – user207421 May 31 '16 at 05:01
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    @EJP: But it certainly might be cause for further investigation, which the hit man presumably wants to avoid. – Nate Eldredge May 31 '16 at 05:08
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    @Thunderforge: Just like tax evasion was the least of Al Capone's worries... :-) – Nate Eldredge May 31 '16 at 05:09
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    It is my understanding that altering defacing money is legal. It is attempting to use it as money afterwards--the "fraudulently" part of the linked-to statute--that is illegal. I am not a lawyer, nor do I even play one on T.V. – Wayne Conrad May 31 '16 at 05:25
  • Can it be that the laws regarding this changed over time? It might have been different when the comic was written. For example, in Europe in the late 19th century it was common practice to pay with a half or a quarter of a bill (the bill was literally cut into 4 pieces), and it was accepted as half or quarter of the value. I'm pretty sure it's not accepted today in any country in Europe. – vsz May 31 '16 at 06:07
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    @WayneConrad the statute I linked to explicitly says "fraudulently altering", i.e.: the altering itself is illegal. "Fraudulently" in this context means "intentionally", since anyone purposely altering paper currency without authorization from the issuer (the Federal Reserve, in the US) is by definition doing it fraudulently. Accidental mutilation, while results in alteration - is not fraudulent because there was no intent. – littleadv May 31 '16 at 06:40
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    @vaz any modern currency has numbers printed in mirrored quarters, i.e.: splitting it in four will make at least two quarters completely useless (no serial numbers at all), and the other two quarters useless one without the other (since the numbers have to match). So while it may have been a practice (never heard of it though, I know "quarter farthing" was an actual coin in the UK, like "1/2 cent" in the US) it is definitely not so any more, and haven't been for at least most of the 20th century. – littleadv May 31 '16 at 06:46
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    @littleadv It has been common for coins to be split (halves, quarters) but I've not heard of it routinely being done with notes. Incidentally, the fractional farthings (quarter, third and half) while technically legal in the UK were only produced for the colonies (Ceylon as it then was and Malta). – TripeHound May 31 '16 at 09:25
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    @TripeHound for coins it makes more sense, specifically for large denominations. They were made of gold/silver and their value was equivalent to their weight in that metal. So 50 cents were worth 1/2 of $1 worth of (as pure as it was then...) silver, which is exactly would you'd get by splitting a silver dollar coin in half. – littleadv May 31 '16 at 09:27
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    @littleadv The part of the law you linked to talks about coins, not notes. – user2428118 May 31 '16 at 10:16
  • @TripeHound: the fractional farthings you mention aren’t really examples of anything being split — they were whole individual coins, just with a face value of 1/4 farthing. (Just like the farthing itself was a full coin, with value 1/4 of a penny.) – Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine May 31 '16 at 13:53
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    @littleadv fraudulently does not mean intentionally, it means with the intent to defraud. Just cutting it in half is not fraudulent by nature; you would have to do so with the intent of committing a fraud - such as taking both halves to separate banks to try to double your money or somesuch. That law is primarily used to prosecute people who 'wash' lower value bills and reprint them as higher value. – Joe May 31 '16 at 14:07
  • @PeterLeFanuLumsdaine It was littleadv who mentioned them; I was commenting on the "an actual coin in the UK". (I know they're "whole" coins but didn't think to clarify that until after the edit period expired). – TripeHound May 31 '16 at 14:17
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    Altering money without intent to defraud is LEGAL, as others have noted, and there are legitimate reasons to intentionally alter currency. The little markers that people use to test the paper looking for counterfeit is a clear example. As it happens related to coins, I was walking around a park yesterday that has one of those novelty machines that mashes a penny into a themed souvenir. They have exactly the statute that @littleadv has cited on their machine explaining why this is legal, i.e. making a souvenir that you don't intend to pass as money does not constitute fraud. –  May 31 '16 at 16:03
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Under US law, if you clearly have more than half of a torn bill it is worth its full value; the smaller piece is worth nothing... except that having both halves makes the banking system much happier, since it prevents some particularly stupid counterfeiting attempts.

So this proposal wouldn't be cheat-proof unless the cut is close enough to the middle to make determining 51% difficult. And I'd like to see you try to explain to a bank how so many bills were cut in half...

(This is more normally an issue when money has been damaged unintentionally, of course.)

keshlam
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    I'd just say 'the kids were playing'. – Aganju May 31 '16 at 04:58
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    I was on my way to the bank and accidentally surprised Wolverine – user662852 May 31 '16 at 11:49
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    Cutting the note diagonally shoul insure that you get close to a 50/50 split. – Taemyr May 31 '16 at 15:05
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    @user662852 I was on my way to the bank, and actually is Wolverine – Baard Kopperud May 31 '16 at 15:58
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    Yes, I agree with Aganju. 'the kids were playing'. 'This time, my youngest one, Green Goblin, hired the cat and the dog as hit men to destroy his sister's Barbie collection.' 'Yes, Barbie is going to make it I think. I mean she's badly disfigured now with giant bite marks after she was thrown clear across the room by Green Goblin and retrieved by one of the hit men, but right now she's in intensive care and I have every reason to believe she's going to pull through.' – Stephan Branczyk May 31 '16 at 17:30
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The question is about the US but to add the European perspective: The rule over here (I only know German law, but assume it's the same for all of the Euro area) is that you need more than half of the bill or you have to be able to prove that more than half of the bill was destroyed (good luck) in order to get it replaced. Deformed coins can also be replaced.

But all only as long as you didn't break it on purpose. So giving half of the bill to the cab driver would be on purpose and (if the central bank knows about it) make the bill (or coin) invalid.

German information: https://www.bundesbank.de/Navigation/DE/Aufgaben/Bargeld/Beschaedigtes_Geld/beschaedigtes_geld.html

johannes
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As others have noted, US law says that if you have over half the bill, it's worth the full value, under half is worth nothing. I presume if it is very close to half, if even careful measurements show that you have 50.5%, you'll have difficulty cashing it in, precisely because the government and the banking system aren't going to allow themselves to be easily fooled by someone cutting bills in half and then trying to redeem both halves.

I've seen several comments on here about how you'd explain to the bank how so many bills were cut in half. What if you just told them the truth? Not the part about killing someone, of course, but tell them that you made a deal, neither of you wanted to bother with complex contracts and having to go to court if the other side didn't pay up, so your buddy cut all the bills in half, etc. As you now have both halves and they clearly have the same serial number, this no real evidence of fraud. Okay, this is technically illegal -- 18 US Code Section 333, "Whoever mutilates, CUTS, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both." But you didn't do it, the other guy did. I presume the point of this law is to say that you can't get a hold of currency belonging to someone else and mutilate it so as to make it worthless. As he's now given you both halves, I doubt anyone would bother to track him down and prosecute him.

Just BTW, while checking up on the details of the law, I stumbled across 18 USC 336, which says that it's illegal to write a check for less than $1, with penalties of 6 months in prison. I just got a check from AT&T for 15 cents for one of those class action suits where the lawyers get $100 million and the victims get 15 cents each. Apparently that was illegal.

Jay
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    -1 for mis-reading the law. You can't just look at parts of sentences you like when determining what the law means. 18 USC 336 (bold mine): "Whoever makes, issues, circulates, or pays out any note, check, memorandum, token, or other obligation for a less sum than $1, intended to circulate as money or to be received or used in lieu of lawful money of the United States..." The check you got isn't intended for either of the bolded purposes, it's intended to be used to transfer money to settle a debt (I'm certain your check had "Pay to the order of..." on it). – Mark May 31 '16 at 20:48
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    @mark Not sure what you mean about "parts I like" -- who said I like it? Certainly possible I'm misreading the law, but what is a check if not something "used in lieu of money"? Instead of giving someone cash, you give him a check. A check can be circulated, i.e. you can sign a check over to someone else. The law specifically names checks as one of the instruments it covers. How could you use a check "in lieu of money" other than by writing someone a check and handing it to him or mailing it to him? What do you interpret this law to mean? – Jay Jun 01 '16 at 13:14
  • @Jay this specific statute basically forbids paper "cents". Only coins can have denomination of a fraction of a dollar. – littleadv Jun 03 '16 at 07:06