As luck would have it, the dealer who bought my silver at last weekend's show was out of large bills, so I got quite a stack of twenties. On a whim, I decided to check the serials, and found this: I'm not a paper collector (yet), so I'm not especially interested in keeping it. Any ideas on what I could expect to get for it, say on eBay? I have no experience grading paper, either, but from the online descriptions I've found this looks VF at least -- it's got that worn fold in the middle, but it's still pretty crisp...
I'll be the first to make a note on the fact that this is an SOI test note. I'm not sure that this helps much but I thought you should take note of that if you ever go to advertise this particular note. Oh and it's also a trinary-radar. -tbud
Thanks for the info! I'd never heard of "SOI". I noticed the trinary aspect, but if you think about it, about one in every seven radar notes should be a trinary, so it didn't seem like it would be that big a deal. The symmetry in the non-zero digits is kind of cool, too... but, no, no, I'm NOT going to get sucked into FRN numerology.
How much of a premium does a SOI note bring? Just curious.... Really neat note, OP, you'd think the dealer would check!
Clay; As I read your link, I clearly see the larger numerials in the SOI denominations. What confused me was the word "Test" in an earlier op. I immeadiately thought of the red "S" printed on the face of some older series notes. The description in the link doesn't refer to the newer press production notes as "test" but simply limited to 32 position vs 50 position plates. And that's because of the other existing equipment limitations. If it's mentioned some where else, please direct me to the right location, thanks.
The dealer was also finishing up a large buy from someone else, so things were a little hectic. I think, though, that most coin dealers in a situation like this probably aren't scanning for "interesting" FRN serial numbers...
SOI test notes most likely won't be bring any premiums any time soon unless they fail. Even in that case, it would take a while for them to show and premiums. They are certainly less common than regular currency, that's all. You'll still find them very often though because a lot of the newst currency being released into circualtion are SOI test notes. The SOI test notes are nothing like that of any earlier US test runs in terms of rareity. To date, I have found 3 SOI test star notes for my collection including 2 Richmond $20 *'s and 1 Dallas $20 *. They are quite interesting, IMO, and I love to see star notes with SOI on them. -tbud
I'd never heard of this (being a coin guy), and darned if the first 20 I pulled out of my pocket was SOI! Interesting....like the web note $1s awhile ago. Thanks for the explanation!!! Russ
Yeah, I don't think "test" is really an appropriate term here. The note was printed on the new SOI presses, but those aren't in any way experimental. They're an established intaglio press design; it's just that the BEP hadn't bought any presses of this design before a few years ago. Nobody's worried about them "failing" or anything like that. In contrast, the web press back in the '90s was experimental. It was a new design, built to order for the BEP, and they spent several years tweaking it and trying to make it work before they gave up. Something like half of the 2006 $20's printed at Washington, and all of the 2009 $20's printed there, were produced on the SOI presses. So they're certainly not scarce. Now, during the transition in Series 2006, there were a few blocks/runs that were *almost* entirely printed on the SOI presses, with a few old-press sheets mixed in; those old-press notes from the SOI runs *might* just command a premium someday, if a significant population of collectors become interested in this sort of thing. (And that's a big "if"....)
The SOI notes aren't really anything that I ever got into. I see them all the time, and I really can't be bothered to check all of my $20's, to see if they are SOI, or not. I suppose, as Numbers mentioned, the Series 2006 notes might be interesting someday, due to that being the transition year, but these just aren't something that piques my interest, quite yet. But hey, for those who are interested in them, right on! :thumb:
