This occurred to me : Since it's 2020, they could have done something like a "2020 $20 $20 set", a pair of $20 notes with matching "2020" serials. I wonder if they thought of that.
I'd bet they'd sell a few of them Exactly! That post on the matching serial thread is what put the idea in my head, come to think of it... Hey, anybody from the mint or BEP look at this site? There's an idea for you
Recent addition. BEP issued 2020 Year of the Rat. I wasn’t actually looking for another Year of the Rat note, but needed a J-A block note and this was my way of accomplishing it. Nicely centered also.
I check the Mint Product Schedule about once a month and the only paper money offering I spotted was the Native American $1 2020 Coin and Currency Set with a TBD date. https://catalog.usmint.gov/product-schedule/
I check the schedule too. I remember reading somewhere that they suspended products due to COVID-19, but I wonder if they will resume at all for his year.
My focus is on the Intaglio Print Program, but I spoke with the BEP marketing manager a couple days ago and I think all the peripheral collector products are in the same boat right now. The Bureau still has their presses running, but most office staffers are working from home. The top priority is maintaining the country's money supply. Everything else is taking a backseat. He had no timetable on when the intaglio prints would be released. BEP will not attend the summer FUN show in June and probably not the ANA show in August, if either take place. I would not expect any new collector products to show up on the ordering platform until the fall at the earliest.
As I recall from checking the mint schedule before the virus thing started, the only thing scheduled that hadn't been released was the Native American set, and I don't believe there was anything else scheduled for the rest of the year, as far as BEP products. Maybe I'll look at this as a chance to grab up some of the older BEP releases that I missed, on ebay or wherever. Better than nothing...
I see there is an H block $2 Lucky Panda up on ebay. Has anyone seen any other blocks after G block? I think L blocks are out there, too
I just ordered one a couple of weeks ago and got an H..E block, which wasn't newsworthy. The H..H is new to me -- do you have a link to that? The suffixes I've seen for the 2003A $2 St. Louis premium notes are C, D, E, F, G, L.
Yesterday I talked with Kevin Brown again, the BEP marketing manager, and he told me much the same thing that he did back in May. All the focus is on their core mission -- keeping the presses going to supply the cash needed to keep the economy moving. They are being *very* cautious about Covid, taking all precautions and keeping many staffers out of the building. You can imagine the effect if there was an outbreak and the Bureau had to shut down. The same thing is happening at the Mint. Consequently, the Mint/BEP ordering platform has been hamstrung, with many collector items unable to be shipped. Kevin said they can't risk bringing the people into the building who would normally facilitate the shipping, and they can't outsource because they're not able to move the products elsewhere. They also cannot allocate manpower to resupply collector items, so even when things return to normal it's going to take a while for the supply chain to kick in again. If you notice a lot of "currently unavailable" on the Mint ordering site now you know why.