OK, first off...I am new to collecting paper currency so this thread will be loaded with newby questions and comments. Today at work (at my bank) a note came through that interested me so I wrote down all the details about it and set it aside for myself if worth keeping. Problem is, with these new notes I don't know how to decipher them...I don't even know where the district is listed. So, I'm just going to put everything I copied off this bill into this post and hopefully you can help me learn what it is and if its worth keeping. OK, so here we go: First, it is a $5 star note series 2003 Its very crisp (probably not GEM CU, but CU to CH CU I would guess) but it was cut slightly off center with a wider boarder to the top than the bottom. I'd say either 60/40 or 70/30 centering top/bottom. Serial Number: DC 00392285* Just below the serial is C3 (is this the district?...Philadelphia?) To the upper left of the portrait is D3 and to the lower right of the bill is FW D57 OK, so what did I find??? (and should I get it?)
Hello Richie.. You might want to check the details again. I am not showing any stars in my reference book 8th Edition Schwartz/Linquist Guide to Small Size Paper Money. I see the DC block and that they were printed in both Washington and Fort Worth "W"/FW" I am showing a high of DC704000000A...check the series again. RickieB
According to here, http://www.uspapermoney.info/serials/f2003_q.html there were 640,000 printed, the smallest district for the series. I would keep it regardless of condition, but as a side note, the misalignment actually lowers the value until it becomes a true error, then the value shoots back up.
RichieB16 - i have collected currency for YEARS, with a more dedicated focus the last few years. Tothis day (even to this very post ) i post newbie comments and questions. Never fear, tis the only way we learn! :thumb:
By the time the Schwartz/Linquist book was sent for printing, the numbers for this series may not have been fully released. I have no way of knowing when the site I linked to added that info. I just know that the owner works hard on that site and it's pretty cool that he still makes it freely available.
It happens a lot with the late star printings. That DC..* run was printed in April 2007, far later than most of Series 2003. When the eighth edition of S&L came out, someone apparently forgot to check whether a series as old as 2003 needed to be updated. Late star runs like this happen in many series, though. The BEP seems to print them as a way of using up its last few old-series printing plates after a series change, since stars are often printed in short/irregular print runs anyway....
So this would lend to the theory that the BEP releases full bricks of star notes, especially since I see the timing on many first star note runs can be many months after the first runs for a given series. Or I guess they could be substituting star notes from previous series into straps of a later series. I'm confused...
OK, I got it. What do you guys think? I'm not an expert in grading (at all), but I would think its at least CU and maybe CH CU. Also, what would a note like this be worth (not that I'm going to sell it or anything)? Also, the centering reflected in the scans is pretty accurate (the image didn't get cropped). So, its a little shifted downward but not too bad.
It definitely looks CU, but I think the word Choice gets thrown around too much. The overprint isn't perfectly centered, but I don't know where you draw the line for Choice.
Yes, they frequently use old-series stars as replacements for newer-series notes, as long as there hasn't been a design change. You'll notice that the first printing of each new design is always a run or two of star notes, but (as you said) that's not necessarily the case for the first printing of a new series using existing designs. These days, the BEP uses star notes at two stages of the printing process. If they catch an error after serial-numbering the sheets but before cutting them, then they replace the whole error sheet with a sheet of stars (leading to a bunch of straps each ending up with one star in the middle). If they catch an error after cutting and strapping the notes, then they replace the whole strap with a strap of stars. The production lines move so fast that it's actually more cost-effective to throw away 99 good notes along with the error than to have the inspector take the time to undo the strap and replace one note!
I missed this post, thank you for the info. If you are still reading this, what do they do for errors caught before the COPE-PAK step. Do they just remove the sheet at that point in time and add star sheets to the end of the entire run to make up the difference? Also, is the replacement of defective sheets automated (using something like an automated vision inspection system to catch errors) or is it manual?
If they catch an error before the serial numbering step, they just pull the sheet and shred it; no star notes are involved at all. At that early stage of the printing process, the sheets aren't assigned to a specific print run or serial range yet anyway. Sometimes the intaglio-printed sheets will sit in inventory for a long while before the BEP gets around to serialling them, and then they just pull as many sheets as they need and send them to COPE-PAK. The inspections are primarily automated these days, though the production is still spot-checked by human inspectors. I think the final inspection, after the notes are cut and strapped, is still done entirely by humans, though.
