Hello All, I've been working on a $1 US currency type collection for a while. When it comes to some of the older note varieties, I've noticed that a good majority of the notes have black tick marks on the top or bottom center of the face. I do not particularly like the look of currency with the ticks, so I typically try to avoid them. I buy all graded notes, and as far as I can tell the presence of the tick does not seem to affect grading. I'm assuming that these marks probably have something to do with ensuring proper alignment of the paper during printing, however, I was hoping that you guys could provide a more definitive explanation. Also, is the presence of these marks considered at all by paper graders? And do any of you (or collectors in general) have an aversion to these marks? Do you consider their presence when purchasing a note? I've provided an example of what I am talking about below. Thanks!
I'm not sure about this because I am venturing outside my normal field, but from the series date and the fact this is a silver certificate I believe these were printed as a twelve note sheet. If so the J note position letter would put this note on the sheet in a place wher there should not be printing alignment marks visible.
On the 12-note sheets, the alignment marks were generally located at the horizontal midline: between C and D, and between I and J. Some of the early 12-subject sheets also had a T-shaped mark in the vertical margin between D and J; a small corner of such a mark appears to be visible at the upper left of the posted note. On the 18-note sheets, the marks are again along the horizontal midline: between C and D, between I and J, and between O and P. On the 32-note sheets, there are no alignment marks between the notes, but there are still marks in the outer sheet margins. They're sometimes visible on a corner note (A1, D2, E3, H4) or on a note from the center of an edge (D1, E1, A2, H2, A3, H3, D4, E4) if it happens to be cut with a fairly wide margin on the relevant side. Since the alignment marks are a normal part of the note printing, I've never heard of them being considered a detraction. But if you don't like them, just select notes from sheet positions that don't have these marks.
Those heavy black marks over the serial numbers really destroy any value that note had. There really is no reason to hide the serials.
Well, I snagged the picture from an online auction. I didn't really think that showing the #'s would be a problem. But then again, I didn't want to risk having a member on these forums see me badmouthing a note that they are trying to sell. I know that it would be a long shot occurrence, but figured I should play it better safe than sorry. Thanks for the info about the sheet layouts guys. I figured that it was something like that, but could not find that specific info online. I didn't know whether presence of these marks was something that collectors payed much attention to. It sounds like they don't, I guess I'm just an oddball :smile
The top vertical line is for alignment of the sheet while the corner and horizontal lines are the crop marks for cutting purposes. I'm in the print industry, so these are pretty commonplace.
The marks are used for alinement for the printing process and for cutting process later. We used some marks as such in some of our process. When I used them, it was before computers were used.
Crop marks should never be seen though once cut, this isn't vistaprint we're talking about. So my guess is there was some shifting during printing. If the mark in the top left was a true crop mark then it would cut the note very short at the top. I'm not sure if they printed the crop marks at the same time as the note itself but it doesn't seem like they did otherwise this thread would not exist. yea, think about it.
Yes, this is true and it's an aspect of quality we hear about constantly. But you are right, these machines don't maintain the tolerances for shifting when they run through the rollers. One sheet is slightly offset from the other. And then when the operators go to cut them, they're cut in batches and not by single sheet. Similar to how postcards and business cards are made. And seeing as how the BEP cracks out volume, they will be more willing to for go some of the quality aspects, like those crop marks and edging for example.
