On a crisp and chilly Thanksgiving Eve in 1971, a man wearing a dark business suit and cheap clip-on tie successfully pulled off the only unsolved aircraft hijacking in the history of commercial aviation. Using the alias "Dan Cooper" (subsequently misreported by the media as “D. B. Cooper”) and a small amount of cash to purchase a ticket for a one-way, half-hour flight from Portland to Seattle, he gained access to the Boeing 727 plane, took his seat near the back, and ordered a stiff bourbon and soda.
Shortly after takeoff, Cooper passed a handwritten note to the flight attendant declaring possession of a bomb and requesting her physical presence next to him. Upon proving his dastardly intent by showing her an attaché case that seemingly contained an assembled explosive device, he demanded $200,000 in negotiable American paper currency along with four parachutes. While local and federal law enforcement scrambled on the ground below to muster up Cooper’s audacious order, the plane circled for a few hours before finally making its descent into Seattle. That is where his full ransom was received, and the flight’s passengers were released, leaving only four crew members remaining on board for the second leg of his legendary caper.
After refueling and taking to the air for the second time, Cooper instructed the plane to head toward Mexico City via Reno (for more fuel) and quickly sent the flight attendant up to the cabin with the pilots. He then strapped on a parachute, tied the cash to his body, ripped off his necktie, and made the giant leap of faith down into the stormy Pacific Northwestern night using the plane’s set of tail section drop-down airstairs.
Despite one of the most massive and thorough criminal investigations in U.S. history, Cooper was never seen or heard from again, leaving large segments of the population captivated and mystified, from true crime fanatics to aviation enthusiasts. Nine years after the fateful high-altitude heist, numismatists began to take keen notice as well.
In February 1980, an eight-year-old camper named Brian Ingram was digging into a sandy bank of the Columbia River in southern Washington and began encountering clumps of rotting, heavily distressed $20 bills. His parents soon became involved with the curious discovery. A total of $5,800 was excavated and eventually turned into the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as Brian's father had a suspicion it might be tied to the Cooper investigation. The FBI later confirmed that, indeed, the serial numbers fell into the range of the bills supplied for the ransom by the Seattle First National Bank on the night of the hijacking.
An ensuing lengthy and contentious legal battle between the airline, insurer, and finder resulted with Ingram being able to keep $2,760 in face value of it, or about half of the found loot. In 2008, just 15 of these highly degraded but historically significant $20 Federal Reserve Note fragments were consigned by Ingram to public auction, resulting in about $37,000 worth of proceeds. The subject of this edition’s Noteworthy Notes column involves two of those pieces that PCGS Banknote recently had the honor and pleasure of inspecting and certifying.
There are many features involved in the process of authenticating paper money, but in this case, nothing was more important than the actual serial numbers, which were carefully recorded by law enforcement before the ransom was handed over to Cooper and matched to these, which now reside in our archival-grade, security-featured plastic holder. Also, notice that the two serial numbers of this pair are identical, representing the left and right side portions of the same note. What a find. Now, if only someone could find D. B. Cooper himself!