I'm looking at starting a set of all the various colors of Treasury seals on small size notes, including the Hawaii and North Africa notes. Question for the gang: Which denomination would be the most cost effective choice in, say, F-VF condition? The $1 and $2 won't work, as they wouldn't include Nationals, so it would have to be $5, $10, or $20 ($50s are way out of my league). What think you?
gsalexan: Great project to say the least...just wanted to provide you with a little info on Small Size Feds as well... Keep in mind that there are several ink colors used on Small Size Feds as well..You are aware of most types as you listed two above (Brown and yellow)...there are also Gold notes (Gold) Legal Tender (Red) Silver Certs (Blue) Nationals (Brown) Fed Reserve in Dark Green, Light Green and a few varities inbetween. The Gold notes will be a different denom from the $5 set sorry to say..but then you could go for the $10 set If I were to do this the denmination I would select would be the $5 note...humm maybe the $10
Steve... Whoops.. thanks.. I am slipping in my old age:yes: Post edited...lol (yes I was visualizing the District Seal.).
There's no way to do the set with all the notes being the same denomination. Even if you just look at USNs (red), SCs (blue), and GCs (yellow), there's no single denomination that was printed as all three of those types. So, you've got two choices. You can either make the whole set match except for one note (all $5's with a $10 GC, or all $10's with a $5 USN), or else you can include a variety of denominations. Personally I'd go with the latter--I think it'd look better than having one odd note that clashes with the rest of the set. I'm assuming, here, that you want to collect all the different *types*. If you really just want to collect all the different *colors*, then the $1 denomination would work just fine--you'd need one fairly expensive note (the 1928 USN), a couple of moderately priced notes (the Hawaii and North Africa), and a couple of common notes (the FRN and blue-seal SC), and those would cover all five seal colors that have appeared on small-size currency. The other choice would be $5's, which would make the red seal a lot cheaper but raise the price of the Hawaii and North Africa a good bit.
Numbers, I agree with your logic -- I think a multi-denomination set would look the best. Yes, I was thinking of a type set, so that would be: Silver Cert (blue) Gold Cert (orange) US Note (red) National (brown) FRN (dark green and light green) -- I'm going to skip the brown FRN Hawaii (brown) No. Africa (yellow) Do I have them all? Conceivably, if I went with less expensive types I could get all the different colors on different denominations: $1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50. Then follow-up with the Hawaii/No. Africa, maybe with two $5s. If I stay in the F to VF range, roughly how much do you think I'm looking at to build a set like that?
Your Gold note's color is a gold color, and the North African are yellow. All small size 1928 Series and up. The Red Seals: $1.00, $2.00, $5.00, $100.00; The $10.00, $20.00 only proof printed, not Issued. Many star notes. The Gold Seals: $ 10.00, $20.00, $50.00, $100.00, $500.00, $1,000.00, $10,000.00, $100,0000.00 The Brown Seals: $1.00, $5.00, $10.00, $20.00, $50.00, $100.00 The Blue Seals: $1.00, $5.00, $10.00 Many star notes The Green Seals: $1.00, $2.00, $5.00, $10.00, $20.00, $50.00, $100.00, $500.00, $1000.00, $5000.00, $10000.00 And yes the Light Green and dark Green ones. Also, the mule, wide and narrow varieties. Star notes in this series. Special Issues: Yellow Seals: North Africa: $1.00, $5.00, $10.00 Brown Seals: Hawaii: $1.00, $5.00, $10.00, $20.00 One star note in the $10.00 The ones that I have all in broad print. They are fun to acquire. Good luck in you search.
Wow! Very pretty set! All you're missing is a $2. Yep, that's what I'm shooting for, but I doubt I can afford the grades you have here. How long did it take to put these together and what did it cost?
Not sure why you'd skip the brown-seal FRBN...it'll likely be a good bit less expensive than the brown-seal National. I'd probably include both of them--the National has the small brown seal, while the FRBN uses the same large seal as on FRNs (and all the other 1928/1934 types). If you're going to distinguish the different shades of green, there are actually three of them: the deep forest green of the early 1928 printings, the light yellow-green of the late 1928 printings and early 1934 printings, and the dull blue-green of most 1934 notes. The first and third are both commonly called "dark green", but they're nothing like each other. (There are also some transitional shades in between them, but that's probably pushing it....) If you want, you could even throw in a modern FRN for another shade of green.
What about a ringed seal? They're pretty small. Sorry I dont know anything about currency so this is the first thing I thought about when I saw your post.
Also have to take into consideration the block numbers. Assuming you're not going for the rare blocks I would say you can go higher in condition. Some of the more common notes are affordable in AU and Unc.
