A very newbie here...I came across this 1950 E $50 a few weeks ago...the serial numbers, signatures, and seal over the word "fifty" are all definitely off center. I am not a currency collector, so I'm not sure what to do with this. Do I just put it on ebay? I have no idea how much to ask for it...any help would be much appreciated.
well the fact that it is a 1950 E is a plus. only 3 districts had notes printed for the 1950 E series. now having the 3rd printing off always helps. i dont have my price guide with me right now but i would say you should be able to get a pretty fair amount on Ebay to the right bidder. if you have no use for it put it on Ebay. in a few hours i will have my guides in front of me and can give you an approx value of the note in general. i am sure a few other might chime in before then. nice find
I really don't have any use for it...the only reason I kept it was it looked rather distinctive...otherwise, I would have just spent it somewhere. I'll definitely check here to see what I may sell it for on ebay...thanks!!!
Before you write it off completely, pleae rescan the note and post the image where I can see all the margins (edges). I like NY notes....it is worth more than face for sure! How much? Well re post better and full images. Tell me if there are any additional folds, edge damage, ect ect...I do see two distinct flods in the center area of the note...asol post a better image (Larger) of the reverse. RickieB
Looking at the 2 additional scans you posted...I am seeing different margins from your cropping. Please post a scan with all margins showing...in other words leave some area around the note un cropped. The first re post looks like only top and bottommargin, the 2nd repost has left side onlymargins... Need all of them to show at once, like the reverse. Thanks.. RB
RickieB, I noticed that...let me figure out what's wrong with my scanner...don't know exactly why it captured the back in it's entirety, but not the front.
While you are checking this out, I will let you know some things about the front of this note. The Central vignette of Grant was engraved by a man named John Eissler. He was born in Philidelphia Nov 5, 1873 and attended the Philidelphia Spring Garden Instituite and School of Industrial Art.He engraved for the Elliot Co in Philidelphia and moved into the offices of the American Bank Note Company in Phillie. Sept 5th 1911 he joined the BEP and resigned 12 Dec 1924 but was reappointed on 17 Feb 1925.Retired Nov 30 1941 from the BEP. He engraved over 40 postage stamps and the $50 FRN (Series 1914 Grant Vignette), Fed Reserve Bank Notes and all Small Size Notes featuring the vignette of Grant! New York, Chicago and San Francisco were the only districts to release the notes. Current values in VF range from 60-75 USD and up from there. This note is one of 3,024,000 notes printed. "vrt" hope this expands on some info for you as well. From the looks of your note, it may be worth a small premium, but the folds and hard crease have taken it's toll. Regards, RickieB
RickieB...let me know if this is even worth my while to place on ebay...like I mentioned previously, I am not a currency collector whatsoever...so if it's worth more than face value, then great. If not, then I'll just use it like any other piece of money...not a big deal. BTW, thanks for the history about the bill...it's always been my favorite bill...the people at my bank always laugh when I come in and get cash in $50s.
Thanks for the image... The note appears to be in VF condition from the scan. It would not hurt to put it on EBay and set a $65-$68 price point maybe a buck or 2 more more...that is up to you. There are a lot of people who may want this grade and have limited options. Worst case condition would be Very Good to Fine. Scans can be deceving you know? There appears to be smudging and handling marks on the top center as well and would be considered soiling. Also some light minor staining on the reverse left bottom margin. In this case I would say $58-$60 The Fed Bank number "2" in the upper right corner is shifted to the right and into the design element and will be considered a minor error as well. Good luck and let us know what happens. RickieB
RickieB...thanks for the assessment of the bill. I did notice how that last scan showed a darkness around the top center of the bill...there isn't any darkness on the actual bill, and when I scan at a very high bit rate, it isn't present...only when I scan at 300dpi. Anyway, will probably just spend it...I haven't listed anything on ebay in ages, and it seems like a pain for just twenty bucks above face value. Again, thanks for all of your help.
No problem.... Try a little windex on the scanner bed glass. :smile :smile Post it again...after you clean it....put some black paper as the background as well. RickieB
RickieB, Thanks for the help...already spent too much time on this bill, and really don't see making $20 profit on ebay as anything worth the effort. I think I'll just use it on a good bottle of wine.
Thanks, Rickie. This 1950E is also the last one with this full back design. On 1963A BEP zoomed in the Capitol by ~5%. In result they had to cut off about 6 mm from the bottom of the vignette, removing the row of nice Model T like cars (taxi?) on the left side. Does anybody know how BEP justified this castration? There was a lot of space on the top for new motto "in god we trust", so it couldn't be about the space...
I had always been under the impression that it was cut out so that the "motto" In God We Trust could be shown. If you have you alternate information, I for one would enjoy learning of it. RickieB
It's because of the new dry-intaglio printing process used for the 32-subject sheets. The 18-subject sheets had used wet-intaglio, in which the sheets had been dampened before the printing process, so that they wouldn't tear under the pressure of the printing plates; the new 32-subject presses were designed so as not to require that step. The old wet-printed notes had shrunk slightly after printing as they dried, so the new dry-printed notes had to be printed ever-so-slightly smaller in order to get a finished product of the same size. But there's no good way to "zoom out" a steel engraving by a few percent, so instead the BEP had to trim out small bits of the vignettes, portraits, borders, &c. to achieve the size reduction. It's particularly noticeable there at the bottom of the $50, because the whole amount of the vertical shrinkage had to be taken out right there--there's no room to cut anything out at the top, as the tip of the Capitol dome had already been right up against the lettering, even on the older plates. But similar cuts were made on all of the other denominations too, both face and back. Compare a 1935 $1 to a 1957 $1, and you'll notice that a bit less of Washington's collar is visible on the latter, for example, and that THE and AMERICA are closer to the side borders than they used to be. It can make a good puzzle to get an 18-subject note and a 32-subject note of the same denomination and type, and see just how many subtle differences you can spot.... Basically, it's all a lot like the "wide" and "narrow" varieties of the 1934/35 notes, except that those are better known because some of them changed in the middle of a series, creating collectible varieties. Oh, and something similar happened with the web-press $1's, as well--I'm not sure precisely why, but the $1 note design had to be rebuilt for those plates too, and again there are lots of subtle differences in spacing of various elements on a web $1 vs. a regular $1 FRN.
Shoot! I knew the new dry printing is the reason why the portraits on the front became a little larger but I didn't link it to the change on the back. Thank you, Numbers!
