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Collector's money too costly to keep

The man spent about $5,000 to put the currency on display but now says he'll sell it or lock it up..

By LIBBY NELSON, Times Staff Writer
Published November 25, 2007

Jesus Lopez has so much money that he can no longer afford to keep it.

In more than 50 years pursuing his passion for collecting paper currency, he has bills from Mexico and Malawi, China and Cuba. He has U.S. bills worth $10,000 and $2, Japanese bills worth 1 cent and a Colonial bill older than the United States.

But generating interest in the collection of 4,000 bills from more than 180 countries has been an uphill battle, with Lopez usually spending his own money to exhibit them.

It has become prohibitively expensive, he said.

"The doors have closed for me," said Lopez, 67. "No one is interested in the display."

He's hoping someone will buy the collection he spent more than 50 years putting together, beginning in his childhood.

If he doesn't find a buyer, he said, the bills will go out of the public eye and into a safe deposit box at the bank.

Lopez has displayed the collection at the University of South Florida and St. Petersburg College. He exhibited it in Mexico, where he was born.

He built Plexiglas cases so that the 3,000 bills he displays can be seen from both sides. He sometimes pays for the rooms, including regulating the temperature and humidity.

Preparing the collection for display cost more than $5,000, he said.

He can no longer afford its upkeep, and no one seems to be interested anymore.

"One man told me to get people interested. You have to have money," Lopez said, laughing. "I have money!"

He also has money trivia: Lopez knows China was the first society to print money, and Massachusetts was the first state, with coins in 1652 and bills in 1690.

He says 27 countries call their currency "dollars" and that Queen Elizabeth II of England appears on the currency on five continents.

He's learned more than that, though. The self-educated retired machine operator can talk about Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party, the Aztec calendar and the legend of the founding of Rome. He has never traveled outside North America but has currency from as far away as Japan and Iraq.

"You can learn different subjects - geography, history, economy," Lopez said. "I have learned a lot and I want to share it."

Those who see the collection can also learn about the United States, he said.

The collection of U.S. money includes a bill from the Colonial era and a $5 bill with an American Indian chief as the portrait.

An American tourist in Mexico looked at the exhibit for an hour, Lopez said, before saying, "I feel ashamed to have to come to Mexico to learn about my own money."

Some of the money is worthless, backed by governments that have since fallen.

Others, including some of the older American currencies, is worth many times its face value.

Selling those bills could make the collection pay for itself, but Lopez wants to keep it intact.

"I want to keep it in schools, displayed," he said.

Libby Nelson can be reached at 727 893-8779 or lnelson@sptimes.com

[Last modified November 24, 2007, 20:07:11]