At the Dallas ANA convention last week, I had the chance to meet the guys from Banknote Central (www.banknotecentral.com). They sell a "software as service" product that warehouses images of world bank notes. Unlike the collector boards, theirs lets you search by image. Enter your image; find others that match. I did not get the chance to try that out. However, I did search by keyword. One of my interest areas is Authors. I have about a dozen world notes, including tie-ins. For instance, there is a little 20 yuan from China printed by a textbook company. Another is the Icelandic note showing printers. Me (left) being shown how the service works. The principals - Diego Pamio, Julio Staude, and Alejandro Dutto - are computer programmers who also collect. This is the program they wanted for themselves. The service costs $150 per year, and you can pay that for one nice note, so you have to decide. You can get a 30-day trial just by registering. Myself, I am not a big collector; I just write. But the value seemed consistent with the cost of slabbing, books, or similar overhead for a serious collector or dealer. As a "software as a service" (SaaS) cloud-based product, you always have the current version.
