hey all. i found this messy $10 in the teller drawer today. normally i wouldn't give such a thing a second glance, but the coloring of the "stain" is exactly the same as the torch, and it is all around the torch (even a bit onto the back). so my question is simple. do you fine folks think this is the result of some odd ink smear situation at the bep, or is it a coincidence that someone spilled some [red wine, fruit punch] all over this note? thanks for having a look!
on the bottom left of the note looks like the remnant of a stamp also looks like it could be red marker. note probably get wet and the stamp/marker bled. i have seen tons of notes like that. all different colors. just my .02
i assume you're referring to the circular markings? that would make pretty good sense. obviously, the ink used during printing of the notes shouldn't bleed like that. thanks!
It's not an ink smear during the printing process. Probably ink that landed on the note once it started circulating. Legitimate smears like these may be caused by excess ink or solvent remnants. This does not look like excess ink. However, if we were dealing with a solvent smear, it would not be limited to just the red ink. The red torch on the left side of the note is part of the 2nd printing. If it was a solvent that caused the ink to smear, we would expect to see similar effects to the black and yellow inks.
The torch, and all of the other background-color elements, are part of the underprint--applied before any of the intaglio printings. Then the "first printing" is the back intaglio plate and the "second printing" is the face intaglio plate, and the "third printing" or overprint is the seals and serial numbers. The terminology gets a bit confusing on the colorized notes, since the colors are applied *before* everything else, but collectors still seem to use the first/second/third terminology the same way they did for non-colorized notes. Maybe the colors are the "zeroth printing"? Or maybe we ought to avoid the first/second/third language since it no longer means what it sounds like it means.... But back on the topic of this thread: no, the pictured note does not exhibit a BEP printing error.
Well with Nationals, I sometimes refer to the 3rd and 4th overprints, since the bank's charter info was printed separate from the serial numbers. It's possible to bring that back. Zeroth sounds horrible and awkward. How about the pre-printing stage?
