Wing 03 · The Education Wing
Questions a buried dollar can answer.
Everything here is organized by the question you would actually ask, answered plainly in the first paragraph, and illustrated only with bills from the burial. No stock photos. The dollars are the diagrams.
New · interactive
Treasury data, liveDebt to the dollar
$40,068,807,991,925
US national debt, rounded to the dollar · official figure Sep 24, 2026, ticking at the past year's pace
99.0% of it was borrowed after August 15, 1971, the day the dollar left gold. A dollar that once bought 1.505 grams of gold now buys 0.0071 g.
Explore 236 years of debtWhen money goes wrong
Why do banks refuse damaged or moldy money?
Why banks refuse moldy money
How do you exchange mutilated money with the US Treasury?
Exchanging mutilated currency
Is moldy money safe to handle?
Is moldy money safe?
Can you clean moldy money?
Cleaning moldy money (don't)
What happens to money buried underground?
What burial does to a dollar
How dirty is the money in your wallet?
How dirty normal money is
What does it mean when a dollar's serial numbers don't match?
Mismatched serials + error notes
Reading the dollar in your pocket
What do all the letters and numbers on a dollar bill mean?
Dollar bill anatomy
What are the 12 Federal Reserve Banks, and which one issued your dollar?
The 12 Federal Reserve Banks
Treasury vs. Federal Reserve: who does what with your money?
Treasury vs. Federal Reserve
What money actually is
What are dollar bills actually made of?
What bills are made of
What is a fiat currency? A plain-language answer
What is fiat currency?
How much buying power has the dollar lost over time?
The dollar's lost buying power
How has the US national debt grown since 1790?
The national debt, 1790 to today
In the queue
+ Star notes: the replacement dollars collectors hunt
+ How PMG grading works, and what a cert number proves
+ How a dollar bill is printed, plate to pocket
+ Why cash survives the washing machine
+ A field guide to the mold that eats money
+ What happens to worn-out currency (shredded, bricked, gone)