Way back in early 2007 the BEP decided to come out with series 2006 $5 notes. The signature combination had changed from the series 2003A Cabral-Snow, to Cabral-Paulson, so a series change was due. Although something as small as a single signature seems minor, the series changed. The next six months (May 2007 through October 2007) the BEP printed series 2006 $5 's with prefix "H" for districts Atlanta F, Chicago G, and Minneapolis I. The BEP printed just over 409 million of these with no star notes. Sample note; The whole time this was going on, the BEP was going through a major design change for all of the higher denomination notes, called the New Color of Money. Now it's November 2007 and the BEP introduces the New Color of Money $5 ....a major design change. You would think a new series would be needed, but these are also series 2006. The new $5 signatures were the same, but the entire color background is completely different and the prefix changed from "H" to "I" . Sample note;
My point is, this is an anomaly. I am unable to remember when a note had a complete redesign and remained the same series. The $10, $20, $50 and $100 all changed series with the introduction of colorization.
Right, it was as though the BEP changed the rules. I thought at the time it was a bit disingenuous to not have differing series - for instance the Series 2006 in the uncoloured should have been Series 2003-B whilst the new colourised notes should have been Series 2006. I don't think series of notes have touched "B" since the Series 1969 notes went to a 1969-C have they?
The BEP seems to change the rules as they see fit. The colorized $5 2006 is defintely an odd ball. Perhaps plates were already designed and produced. So changing the series designator from H to I was the easiest way to signify the change. Now fast forward to the $100 2006 series and yet another rule change. According to the BEP the $100 2006A was given a series change because it signified a new printing batch. Huh?? Same thing with the $100 2009 and $100 2009A. Same signatures different series. I am anxiously awaiting the change, if any, to the $100 2013 which so far have only been printed from Oct 2014-Feb 2015. Which by the way to the 'new batch' rule should of changed the $100 2009A series to 2009B because the 2009A series were not printed during this time and reprinting after the 2013 series would be considered a new batch. Rule out the door again. So anyway the $100 2013 has not been printed since Feb 2015. So lets see how these end up.
We should probably accept that the people who decide such things don't care what we think about their decisions. Instead, we should concentrate on the fact that we are interested in and collect paper money, and try to preserve notes that are representative of both our interests and their historical significance.
As I suspected. The 2013 $100s have begun printing again after almost two years in hiatus and no 'batch' series change. Per BEP rule new printing should be 2013A.
Interesting....I have actively been searching for a 2013 $100 and have been unable to find one. I'm uncertain whether the first batch were shipped overseas or just never released.
Gotta be never released. Stuff shipped overseas doesn't vanish; it often gets into the collector market more readily than stuff shipped to U.S. banks, because (in general, with exceptions) foreign banks are more likely to allow their employees to comb through the money for anything interesting and sell it to a currency dealer. Now that the 2013 $100 is back in production, it'll be interesting to see whether any of them finally appear in circulation, and if they do, whether any of the early printings from 2014-15 are among them. As for the series-dating rules...yeah, the BEP has been making stuff up. But that's not a new phenomenon; there are inconsistencies going back decades, if you pay close attention. Probably the earliest example: In the 1928 series, each denomination/type started out as "Series 1928" when it was first printed, even though they weren't all started at the same time. So for example the 1928 $2 USN has Tate-Mellon signatures, but no $5 USNs were printed with those signatures. So when the White-Mellon signatures came along, we got 1928A $2's but just 1928 $5's. The $2's and $5's remained one letter off each other for years; by the time we got to Clark-Snyder, the $2 was 1928G and the $5 was 1928F. BUT, in later years the BEP seems to have decided that that was too confusing--there were no $50's or $100's in Series 1963 (Granahan-Dillon), but the next series (Granahan-Fowler) is still called Series 1963A in all denominations. So there are 1963A $50's even though there are no 1963 $50's. Much more recently, there are 2004A $10's even though there are no 2004 $10's...which is consistent with how it worked for 1963, but not consistent with how it worked for 1928. Basically, every time they need a new series, somebody at the BEP comes up with a designation for it; and if a weird situation comes up, they don't always stop to ask how their predecessors handled a vaguely similar situation decades ago. So the broad outlines of the dating are consistent over time, but the details definitely aren't.
Thanks for the detailed explanation @Numbers, but I still don't understand how the BEP can roll out a completely different design (colorized) with a different prefix letter (H to I) and continue to use the same series......this, to me is a first.
Yes, it's definitely a first. You can sort of see how it happened, though; somebody wasn't thinking far enough ahead. With the redesigned series coming along, the pattern has always been that all notes of the same design generation, with the same signatures, get the same series designation. For example, in the Withrow-Rubin signatures, all the small-head notes are Series 1995 and all the big-head notes are Series 1996. This is true even though the big-head $100 went into production in 1995 (it was dated Series 1996 anyway, since Series 1995 was for small-head notes), and the big-head $20 didn't get into print until 1998 (it was dated Series 1996 anyway, since the existing small-head $100's and $50's had that date). The same was true for the much subtler redesign of 1991, when the microprinting and embedded polymer strips were added to the notes. Villalpando-Brady notes without these features are Series 1988A; with these features, they're Series 1990. On the other hand, when the *next* series date change *after* the redesign happens, the pattern has been that all notes of all design generations go back to using a single series date. So after that 1991 design change was done, the Withrow-Bentsen notes with the new security features were Series 1993, and the Withrow-Bentsen $1 notes that didn't get the new security features were also Series 1993. Likewise after the big-head redesign, the Withrow-Summers big-head notes were Series 1999, and the Withrow-Summers small-head $1's were also Series 1999. The Kodachrome redesign in 2003 attempted to follow these precedents. Notes with the Marin-Snow signatures used two different series dates, Series 2003 for older designs but Series 2004 for Kodachrome designs. The trouble was that in this case, the next date change (caused by the Paulson signature) came along before all denominations due to be redesigned had actually been redesigned--a situation which never came up in the earlier design generations. The BEP followed precedent by using the same Series 2006 date for all denominations of Cabral-Paulson notes, whether Kodachrome or not. But then when the Kodachrome $5 went into print a few months later, they were in trouble. It was supposed to have the same series designation as the other Cabral-Paulson Kodachrome notes, which was Series 2006...but there was already a Series 2006 $5, of the non-colorized design! At that point, there were no good options. If the Kodachrome $5's had been called Series 2007 or Series 2006A or something, there would have been two different series designations for Kodachrome Cabral-Paulson notes: that's not how it's supposed to work. But if the Kodachrome $5's were called Series 2006, then there'd be two different $5 series with identical series designations: that's also not how it's supposed to work. Of course, we know they chose the latter option. Whether they'll make the same choice in the future, if a similar situation ever arises again, is anybody's guess.
