Well folded up in Christopher Noe’s pockets is a bicentennial $2 invoice he’s been wearing round since adolescence.
The invoice has served as a central prop in Noe’s 20-plus years of training on the MIT Sloan College of Control and somewhere else. Now, Noe has landed in a movie documentary concerning the uncommon dollar.
“The Two Greenback Invoice Documentary,” produced via filmmaker John Bennardo, will premiere on the Citadel Lauderdale World Movie Pageant on Friday, Nov. 6, and lines pictures of Noe, in addition to Erik Mintz EMBA ’13, who was once impressed to additional analysis the $2 invoice after taking Noe’s magnificence. The documentary examines the historical past — and probably the most misconceptions — surrounding the $2 invoice, a notice that’s nonetheless published, however seldom observed in public.
Noe, a senior lecturer in accounting, makes use of the invoice for example the idea that of fair-value accounting. Described as “an quantity at which an asset may well be exchanged between an expert and prepared events in an arm’s duration transaction” via the World Accounting Requirements Board, fair-value accounting is regularly contrasted with historical-cost accounting, and the 2 approaches are regularly debated in educational and trade circles.
Throughout his December 2011 monetary accounting magnificence, Noe waved the 1976 $2 invoice that that he bought with exchange stored up as an 8-year-old, and requested what its price could be on a present steadiness sheet. To his marvel, for the primary time ever, just about a dozen scholars additionally pulled out $2 expenses from their wallets and handbags and what adopted was once an “emotional” dialogue concerning the invoice’s nostalgia issue, in addition to its price.
Mintz, who additionally collects $2 expenses, was once intrigued that day and spent a yr researching the forex. He wrote a piece of writing that piqued Bennardo’s hobby and ended in Mintz’s function within the documentary. Now an affiliate manufacturer of the movie, Mintz presented Bennardo and Noe. “It’s moderately surreal,” Mintz says. “I were given deeply concerned within the film.”
In 2014, Bennardo filmed Noe giving his lecture the place he asks what the $2 invoice is price. It’s a subject that at all times ends up in an enchanting magnificence debate, Noe says. Most often, a pupil would possibly solution — accurately — that the invoice is price $2. Noe will agree, however issues out that his 1976 invoice is just about 40 years outdated.
“By means of this time [in class], anyone has regarded it up on eBay, and can inform me that it’s price about $8 as a collectible,” Noe says. “You’ll use the $2 cost or the purported $8 cost, however what’s extra suitable?”
The overall solution: It is dependent. The invoice is price a minimum of $2, however the $8 determine is more moderen. There’s now not one ultimate solution, and therein lies the representation of the dignity between historical-cost and fair-value accounting.
Noe additionally stocks a tale within the movie about his father, who died abruptly in 2013 and left in the back of seven $2 expenses in an envelope, addressed “For Chris.” Noe didn’t notice his father had stored the expenses for him. He gave one every to his personal sons, ages 11 and 13. “It is among the extra touching moments of the movie,” Bennardo says. “His contribution to the tale … can’t be understated.”
Noe will proceed the usage of the $2 invoice instance in his categories, and plans to take his circle of relatives to peer the film when it comes out. He admitted he can’t put a worth on his unique $2 invoice.
“It’s my fortunate $2 invoice,” he says, “so for all intents and functions, it’s valuable.”
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