I was aware of colorized notes way back in the day. Thats quite an addition to your collection though!
star notes back then werent like stars today. they were more of a place holder then as a replacement note designation. from what i found and posted here star notes as we know today started in the 1899 black eagle certs.
You are correct. Star notes didn't start as replacement notes until 1899. Before then alot of the notes had stars in the serial number.
Specifically: the 1869 Legal Tender Notes of all denominations (such as this $20), and the 1890 and 1891 Coin Notes of all denominations, used the star suffix on every note. A simpler way of remembering it is that all large-size notes with solid stars are just typical notes for their series, but all large-size notes with open-center stars are replacement notes.
Actually the suffix changed by the 1880 series: Yet another from the "hoard". Basically the star, or carat in this case, denoted the end of the serial number, because then numbering did not go 0000001 etc, but rather started at 1.
but the 'carat' stil only denoted the end of the serial, and not meant to denote a replacement note. cool note
