Mutilated currency is when a piece of money (like coins or bills) gets damaged, either because it was old or because it was mishandled. When this happens, it can make it hard for the government to make sure the money is still safe to use, so they try to figure out the value of the damaged money. They do this by looking at what’s left of the money and comparing it to a normal piece of money. If they can tell what the money is worth, they will replace it with new money with the same value.