Oddity... or not??

Browsing through listing on eBay and found this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/GEM-2-STAR-...737?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a91764269

What really caught my attention was the description states it's 'miscut' but 'taken from a BEP issued uncut sheet'. So someone is taking uncut sheets and cutting them this way? Essentially they are creating their own "miscut error" I suppose.

 

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Yup, a form of scamming newbies to the error world. It's a damn shame...

 

yea seen this scam before...

 

Yea after checking other "miscut error" listings I see this is not an uncommon practice. Some folks disclose they were intentionally cut this way and some don't. Some listings use the term "Faux" cut.

 

Common scam: buy an uncut sheet, cut it wrong on purpose, then sell it as a cutting error. Funny thing is this seller even admits it's a false "error" but people will probably fall for it anyway.

Since the item in the auction is still legal tender, I would say it's worth exactly $2. Pay any more than that and you're getting ripped off (even if the seller admits it, he's still trying to sell it for more than it's worth).

Technically, nothing in the auction listing is false: it is taken from an uncut sheet, and it is miscut (just not by the BEP). Still, it is definitely misleading.

 

Since I don't know, I'll ask -- are sheets of Star Notes in strict serial number order, or can they be a mix of numbers, not necessarily consecutive?

 

Since I don't know, I'll ask. On sheets of Star notes, are the serial numbers in strict numerical order, or can they be various numbers? Notice this piece has serial numbers "20,000" apart.

 

I don't have a sheet of star notes, but do have an uncut sheet of $2 bills; the numbers range from A98447777A to A99997777A (all bills on the sheet have "7777" as their last 4 digits). How precisely they number these I'm not sure, as they don't seem to be in consecutive order at all, and are not even a consistent interval apart. Others may be able to answer this better; I just have my own sheet to go off of lol... I'm sure there's some sort of method to the madness, but what it is I'm not sure. I do know eventually when they cut them (when they do) they put them in numerical order before strapping them, and I imagine they must have some sort of automated process to do so.

 

Taking it a step further, for Star notes, do they "save up" until they need 32 (?) replacement notes, then insert the ones needed by computer, so that the 32 notes may have all kinds of serial numbers? Never thought about this before.

 

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is they create star notes parallel to the regular notes, use them as replacements for the regulars as needed, and destroy what ends up not being needed. In theory a star note should replace a regular note with precisely the same serial number (minus the star).

 

What prompted me to ask, I just sold 3 consecutive 1935A Star Notes on eBay, but having just 3 does not prove that the entire sheet was consecutive. Price was $75, ungraded crisp uncirculated, postpaid, if anyone cares.

 

Once cut up into single notes by the BEP, the notes than become consecutively stacked and shipped off to banks that way

 

Silver certificate sheets were printed with consecutive notes through 1935D:



Starting with 1935E, sheets were printed 8,000 notes apart. Each sheet after the last have consecutive numbers in the same position. When the sheets were stacked, they are cut into consecutive stacks.

 

Here's a more contemporary 4-note sheet of $2 star notes, for reference.

 

The "8,000 note" factor is interesting too; all the newly-printed notes I've seen are perfectly cut, precisely-trimmed, with razor-sharp edges -- a real accomplishment.

 

No modern FRN are printed with consecutive numbers on the same sheet. Not even star notes. The higher serial numbers are printed first and the sheets stacked on top of each other so the numerical sequence goes down through the stack. (So the serial number 1 note is not on the first sheet printed but the last of the first print run.) This is the way they are cut and banded.

Star notes are inserted as sheets prior to cutting when a defect is noted on a sheet. They are a series unto themselves and there is no attempt to replace a defective note with one with the same serial number.

If they did this there would be no reason for the star in the serial number. The sole purpose of the star is to alert the first user of a new pack that there may be notes that are out of serial number sequence. If replacement notes had the same serial number as the note it replaced the numbers in the pack would be in numerical sequence and the star not needed.

Remaining star notes are not destroyed but issued as packs of star notes.

 

Not quite. Some stars are used in sheet form as you describe; other stars are cut and strapped and used as replacement packs. So if a defective note is caught prior to cutting, then the whole sheet is replaced by a sheet of stars; if a defective note is caught after cutting and strapping, then the whole pack is replaced by a pack of stars. (In the old days, they'd replace just the individual bad note, but now they save time by replacing the whole pack.)

In the past few decades, each run of star notes has been used for *either* replacement sheets or replacement packs--not both from the same run. The runs used as replacement sheets wind up being scarcer in the collector market, because nobody's got 100 consecutive notes to sell. This is one reason why certain stars are scarcer than you'd expect based on the number printed.

If star notes are left over at the end of a series, they're not issued "on their own"; they're used as replacements during printing of the next series (so it's perfectly normal to find a pack of 2013 $5's with a 2009 $5 star substituted into it). On the other hand, in case of a redesign, any leftover old-design star notes *would* be destroyed (or, lately, sometimes turned into a BEP collector product).

 

They're a consistent interval apart (50,000, in this case); they're just arranged on the sheet in an odd pattern. The numbering goes by quadrants, and within each quadrant, by columns.

So if your sheet starts with 98447777, then the upper left quadrant of the sheet will count up from that number by 50,000 each position:

98447777 98647777
98497777 98697777
98547777 98747777
98597777 98797777

But from there, the numbering will jump down to the lower left quadrant and repeat the pattern; then the upper right quadrant; then the lower right. So the whole sheet will be:

98447777 98647777 99247777 99447777
98497777 98697777 99297777 99497777
98547777 98747777 99347777 99547777
98597777 98797777 99397777 99597777
98847777 99047777 99647777 99847777
98897777 99097777 99697777 99897777
98947777 99147777 99747777 99947777
98997777 99197777 99797777 99997777

On the modern uncut sheets, the "skip" between positions (50,000 for your sheet) varies greatly. We've seen sheet printings with skips as large as 100,000 (1995 $2 F..B) and as small as 300 (2004A $10 GF..*). Usually they're fairly nice round numbers like 20,000 or 25,000, but some of them have been odder-looking numbers like 48,000 or 23,000 or even 1,125.

 

Great stuff, thank you all.

 

Great stuff Numbers. Very informative post, thank you.