I'm trying to determine what the difference between Wide (margins?) vs. Narrow (margins?). I can use the Serial Numbers to determine the difference but I can't see the difference. My book doesn't help (Small-Sized US Paper Money). It has a picture of each with an arrow pointing to -- what? Google doesn't help. Plenty for sale but no description of the difference. Help, please.
The wide border has 2x more printed space between the top of The United States of America and the margin.
Ah, I see. Thanks. Is there a specific measurement for the reverse design on each? That's not necessary to know as long as I can match up the letter combo of the serial number with my catalog. Just a curious mind wanting to know.
While we're on the subject of narrow and wide variations, another back plate variation is the 1928F $5 United States Note (Legal Tender Note).
I forgot to mention that the same wide and narrow variation of the 1928F $5 United States Note is found on the 1934D $5 Silver Certificate and 1950 $5 Federal Reserve Note.
For $1 SCs, the last wide back plate was 5015, and the first narrow back plate was 5017. There is no need to measure anything.
Thanks for all the help. I'll just have to make sure that I'll have my catalog with me when I go shopping. Remembering serial number letter combos or back plate numbers just isn't going to happen for me. It's the age thing (mine).
Clay, have you noticed any sort of price variation based upon the difference of that $5 note? I am curious if one has a higher premium than the others.
Question... Do those plate # parameters apply to star notes or just regular notes? I have a 1935d *d with back plate 5790 but it looks awful wide to me. Maybe it was just miscut? Thanks!
If it's a 1935D *..D, then it was printed from the 18-subject plates, and those were all narrows. Remember that "wide" and "narrow" are describing the green strips at the top and bottom of the design, above "The United States of America" and below "One Dollar". They're not talking about the width of the unprinted margins of the note. A "narrow" note will generally have wider margins, since the actual printed design is smaller. (That was part of the reason why these varieties were made in the first place: by making the printed area of each note slightly smaller, the BEP gave themselves more white space between the notes on a sheet, which reduced the number of miscut errors.)
I have a 1935 E 1$ silver certificate with almost no border on the top of the Bill is that a miscut or is it normal
Going a ways back with this...but would you happen to know the point of back plate change for the star notes? Does the 5015/5017 still stand with the stars? Also, was this a transition for series to follow (like the G w/o then w/motto) or were the wide plates just used to end this series? I was going to skip the Ds for my 1935 series pages (because it's already expensive enough) but now that I know of the D wide and narrow variations I feel like I need one of each.
Yes, the same plates are used to print everything, so the stars will show all of the same plate varieties as the regular notes. BP 5015 was the last wide, and BP 5017 was the first narrow. Note that the *..B and *..C blocks come in both wide and narrow varieties, but the *..D block (printed in 18-subject sheets) only comes in narrow, because all of the 18-subject plates were narrows. All of the 1935-1935C notes are wide, and all of the 1935E-1935H notes are narrow. (For the 32-subject-sheet notes of the 1957 series, the back design was tweaked again; those are actually slightly narrower than the 1935 narrows, to compensate for the lack of paper shrinkage in the dry-intaglio process.)
@Numbers thank you very much for the explanation. I was looking at some listings last night and when I cropped some of the screenshots to compare some of them were the same spacing but listed as different. Your knowledge will save me from making an uninformed purchase once again. Much appreciated.
Mitchell2108 - A pic would help, but in general, if there is even a tiny margin showing it is not considered a cutting error.
Does anybody know how common it is for sequential notes (serial number) to cross over this narrow/wide design design change in $1 1935-D series silver certificates?
I've made a peculiar observation from this recent article: https://www.yahoo.com/news/millions-getting-surprise-payouts-irs-213700147.html. Look carefully at the first picture in the article. The top $1 bill from the wallet is from Series 1988 but the two beneath it appear to be silver certificates?!?! Click here for a higher resolution image of the same picture that appears in the article.