As some of you know I have been $1.00 note searching frenzy and have noticed the word "ONE" over the green seal seems to move around ALOT. Here are a few examples. My question is if anyboby knows, are the printing plates made the same for all the FR's?, are they the same size?, is the paper fed at different rates? or what other factor could cause this?, now I understand that it's a multi step printing process. Sitting here looking at the note another question comes to mind. Why was the green seal on all US currency the only part intentionally printed over on the face? or are my eye's deceiving me. Thanks for all your info John
the ONE doesnt, i believe its the SEAL that does during one of the additional printings. the ONE and the washington DC are the same in relation to each other. It just depends on how things are lined up during the sperate printings.
finnaly!!! i found this on the net... "US currency is printed in three stages: first back of the note is printed, the face devices follow, finally comes the Treasury Seal and the serial numbers"
Allrighty, I'll except that. Then I wonder why the seal is allowed to put anywhere under in this case "one" and the tollerances aren't maintained as well as they are on other portions of the notes? John
the tolerances on the other parts of the note don't change because they are printed from the same plate and therefor are always the same. the tolerance issues come into play between the two different printings. The green of the serial numbers and seal are applied after everything else on the obverse. there will be slight differences from bill to bill due to differences in how each sheet feeds into the press. so long as the seal is on the one and serial numbers don't touch any of the other deviced the bill is considered within toleranc Richard
It's been oh so many decades since I was employed as a typesetter, so maybe I've forgotten what I knew about the printing business, but there's one thing I really don't understand about this. Since the seal and the serial number are printed at the same time, it seems to me their relationship should always be the same, and the point of the chevron in the seal should always be directly under the gap between the fourth and fifth digits of the serial number. So how come in the picture at the top left it's lined up with the front edge of the sixth digit, and in the left center picture it's aimed directly at the fifth digit?
Maybe they are both put on at the same printing facility but at different times?? I'll take 4d dead batteries hontonai John
I think the answer is more simple than that. If you ever get a chance to visit the BEP and take a tour, you will see that there are a number of printing presses printing dollar bills at any one time. All of these bills that the original posting linked were not printed on the same press or the same print run. To prove my theory, the next time you are at the bank ask to see if they have any new bills. Buy a pack of freshly minted dollars for 100 dollars. Flip through the numbers, looking for stars ofcourse, and you should notice that the location of the seal in relation to the serial number is spaced the same. The same machine and the same print run = the same spacing.
The tolerances that the BEP uses are actually quite forgiving. For a note to be considered "NOT" an error, it's face design must be complete (e.g. no part of the face design can be off the edge of the note); the reverse printing must be within the face design (if you hold a note up to a strong light, you will see that the reverse design is smaller than the face design. This is intentional to give them a margin of error for placement of the design without the note looking off center. The Overprint as they call it (in the past, the overprint could have taken multiple printings) is considered OK as long as the seals, district numbers, serial numbers, etc... is not touching any part of the design that it shouldn't be touching. You will find that it takes the overprinting being quite off before it doesn't look right.
