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Message:: [QUOTE="Numbers, post: 1386872, member: 11668"]No, those aren't mules. Now we're just getting our terminology hopelessly confused, I'm afraid.... <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie3" alt=":(" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> A "mule" is a transitional variety. The BEP makes some change that affects both the face plates and the back plates. So for a while they've got both old-style and new-style faces on hand, and both old-style and new-style backs as well, and they're not picky as to which faces get paired with which backs. So there are some notes printed with old backs and new faces, or vice versa. Those are mules. For the 1934 mules that RickieB described, the change involved the font-size of the plate numbers. These numbers were made larger so that they'd be easier to read. So a note that has a "micro" (small font) plate number on one side and a "macro" (bigger font) plate number on the other side is a mule. There are also large-size-note mules, but those have nothing to do with the size of the plate numbers. The change made to those plates was the *location* of the plate numbers: the BEP rearranged them a bit, so there were plates with the number in the old position and plates with the number in the new position, and again there were mules created with old backs and new faces or vice versa. Here you really need a reference book to figure out what's a mule, because for each different denomination and design you need to know which FP# and BP# locations are the old one vs. the new one. More recently, there are small-size mules created when the BEP resets its plate numbering to #1 at the start of a series. In this case, you can sometimes find a mule note, printed with an old high-numbered face plate and a new low-numbered back plate, or vice versa. But again, you need a book to know what to look for, because there are some series where the BEP (for example) reset *only* the face plate numbers but not the back plate numbers. In those series, every note will have a low FP# and a high BP#, but they're not mules, because the plate change never affected the backs at all. (Through most of the 1980s and early 1990s, the FP# resets and BP# resets often seem to have been done at unrelated times, so that it's sometimes not even clear whether or not the word "mule" should be applied in some specific case.) You can also find the word "mule" being applied to notes that share a back plate with notes of an earlier series, even when no change was made to the back plates or to the plate numbering. For example, some 1963 $1 FRNs are called "mules" because they have BP#'s that were previously used on 1957B $1 SCs. This usage of the term "mule" is technically incorrect (there's no transitional variety involved), but is very common and appears in some reference books. I really wish that someone would invent a better term for such notes; it might lessen the confusion about the meaning of "mule". Finally, we have the notes that Greenie describes, 1995 $10's that have different-sized plate numbers. These are simply normal Fort Worth printings, all of which have extra-large-font BP#'s. They're not mules, because there's no transition going on--the BEP didn't switch from small plate numbers to large plate numbers and then mix old face plates with new back plates. Instead, the BEP simply uses the font-size of the BP# to distinguish FW back plates from DC back plates. There now, wasn't that more than you wanted to know? <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie6" alt=":cool:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]

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