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Collector Pays $2.3M for 'Grand Watermelon'--1890 $1,000 Bill

SOURCE: AP (12-16-06)

DALLAS -- An art collector has paid about $2.3 million for a $1,000 bill printed in 1890, according to the auction house that brokered the transaction between two anonymous private collectors.

"This $1,000 bill is one of only two known of its type; the other surviving example is in the museum at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco," Greg Rohan, president of Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries, said Friday.

Rohan said that type of bank note is known to collectors as a "Grand Watermelon" because the green-striped zeros in the denomination "1,000" printed on the back of the bill look like the fruit.
Source: 
AP
Source URL: 
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-thousand-dollar-bill,0,320154.story
Date: 
12-16-06