Had a customer bring this in today. Has anyone heard of anything like this bill before? The star appears to be behind the 4 and E in one. Thanks!
Looks like it was just stamped on. You can see the red ink going over the design, so it definitely wasn't there before the bill was printed. I've not seen this specifically, but some people just like stamping things on bills for sake of keeping track of what they've counted, or just for the heck of it. Interesting for the novelty of it I guess. But it's not a printing error or anything; the star was definitely added post-printing.
Get me a red ink pad and a star stamp and I'll make more for you. This was not done at the time the bill was produced by the BEP. It was done afterwards so it's damaged.
I’ve heard this explained before. Seems the stamping ink adheres to the empty spaces on the note and not very well to the printed parts on the note giving it the appearance of being beneath the stamp.
Not trying to argue but from the photo it looks like the part of the 4 that is in question with the red star is actually soaked into the 4. Just what I see.
There have been verified instances of miscellaneous stamping occurring on currency before the printing process takes place. These are known as "pre-printed stock errors". Such examples are quite rare and uncommon, however. Here is one such example: https://www.numismaticnews.net/article/bart-reports-series-2009-10-error-bill.
That's just a result of the red ink not sticking well to the black ink. But you can still see traces of it. Also in many spots the red ink is actually overlapping and covering up parts of the black ink. The red stamp is clearly added after the bill was printed, not before.
