Hi, I am looking for a good link to search print run figures for old notes. I am aware of mycurrencycollection.com for modern issues, but how about the earlier ones? I'm looking for a this information on a specific note, but I'm sure it would be useful information to the community as a whole. Thanks for any help.
Try here, http://www.uspapermoney.info/serials/all___d.html I randomly chose the $10 denomination Federal Reserve notes. You can choose different denominations at the upper right hand area of the web page. If you buy the Standard Guide to Small-Size US Paper Money, you can view all the denominations of Federal Reserve notes, Silver Certificates, Legal Tenders (US Notes) and all the other small size notes printed since 1928.
Also worth pointing out: In the 1928 and 1934 series, the transitions between different series letters aren't sharp. For example, when Series 1934C came along, the BEP started making 1934C printing plates, but they also kept on using the older 1934B printing plates until they wore out. During the time when they had both old and new plates on hand, they'd mix them freely, often using both on the same press (the presses at the time used four plates in rotation). So when the notes got serial numbers, a brand-new pack of consecutively numbered notes could contain a mix of 1934B and 1934C. Therefore, it's not really possible to give precise figures on the number of notes printed in each lettered series--there were never any records that separated them out. The low/high observed serials in the books give a rough idea of the quantities involved. In many cases the books also give estimated printage figures based on the plate records (take the number of sheets printed from each individual plate, add them up for all plates in the series, and then work up estimates for how many notes resulted after spoilage in the printing process). In the case of Federal Reserve Notes, you also need to remember that the 1928 series had the "Redeemable in gold" clause, which was dropped for the 1934 series. That was a sufficiently big deal that, once the 1934 notes had gone into production, substantial quantities of leftover 1928 notes were destroyed without ever being issued. So the later 1928 printings (1928C and 1928D especially) are a lot scarcer than they look based on the serial ranges or the estimated printage totals.
Very interesting. I'm looking into how much truth there is to the claim that only (7) 1928 series $10 star notes from the 9th district (Minneapolis) are known. How big was the star run? My 2007 edition Blackbook doesn't show any run sizes.
At least 9 per the T&P census, looks like the high known serial is around *00058000, low is in the *00005000's, so that is probably at least 60k printed...
Sounds like you don't need printage data--you need data on how many notes still exist. For such purposes, a census (such as T&P) is going to be a lot more helpful than print run figures, since when you're talking about notes this scarce, there are going to be cases when something with a higher printage has a lower number of survivors. But for what it's worth, here are the 1928-series $10 Minneapolis star printings: I00000001* - I00048000* printed 03/16/1929 I00048001* - I00072000* printed 07/09/1929 I00072001* - I00096000* printed 09/19/1932 I00096001* - I00108000* printed 12/19/1933 I00108001* - I00120000* printed 09/29/1934 Note again that these cover all the 1928, 1928A, and 1928B stars, likely mixed together at some points. And the last printing is so late that it's likely that few if any notes from that printing reached circulation....
First two runs posted above are 1928 plain. Last three are 1928B LGS, and it is likely that the last run was not released.
No $10 1928A I stars were printed, nor 1928B I star DGS. The gap in time between the second and third runs, spanned the first 1928A Minneapolis notes, and the seal color change.
