ESCONDIDO - An advertisement in Monday's North County Times offering sheets of money for sale touted the offer as "this year's hottest gift: Bank books filled with real sheets of money."

The two-page spread inside the newspaper's Local section also promised buyers a chance to get something that isn't routinely available - uncut sheets of $1, $5, $10 and $20 bills. If callers would place an order, they also would receive uncirculated $2 bills as a bonus.

Among the packages offered was the "Investor's Book" for $399 that would see buyers get uncut sheets of four $1, $5, $10 and $20 bills - money with a face value of $144.

In fact, the offer, while not illegal, was nothing more than any consumer could get by directly purchasing uncut sheets of bills from the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing at face value with a minimal fee.

The ad's appearance gave it the feel of a regular newspaper story despite the inclusion of the word "Advertisement" in three spots above the ad.

Some readers who contacted the newspaper said they believe the ad was misleading and a potential rip-off, and North County Times publisher Dick High agreed.

"It's shameless," High said. "This ad should not have run in our paper and I apologize to our readers."

The more than $5,000 ad was not evaluated under the newspaper's normal procedures and would not have been published if those procedures had been adhered to, High said.

Efforts to reach officials with the company behind the ad, World Reserve Monetary Exchange, were not immediately successful. A woman who answered a telephone number that buyers were instructed to call said someone would contact the newspaper, but no one had by late Monday afternoon.

The North County Times is far from the first newspaper to run the ad and later regret it. Numerous other papers have done so, including The Roanoke Times of Virginia last year and the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Chicago Tribune as far back as 1994.

Claudia Dickens, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, said anyone interested in buying uncut sheets of money should check prices offered by the advertiser against prices offered by the Treasury Department agency through its Web site at www.moneyfactory.gov.

"There's not a whole lot I can say other than what they're doing is not illegal but you should compare prices," Dickens said.

A reader who contacted the newspaper, Rosemarie Marousek of Oceanside, said she found the ad "very deceiving."

Marousek said she called the number listed in the advertisement and quickly realized what was being offered was far from a good deal.

"It's a lot more hype than truth," she said.

- Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.