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Message:: [QUOTE="Numbers, post: 563218, member: 11668"]About those star notes.... Aw, shucks....  <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie9" alt=":eek:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />  Glad you find it useful.  And yes, it's too bad about mycurrencycollection.com vanishing the way it did; that star note lookup tool was pretty neat.  Someday when I have much more free time, I'd like to learn enough about whatever-it-is-that's-required that I could put together webpages that do lookups that way, or that duplicate the function of the Excel sheet I posted, or other such things.  But at the moment I don't really know anything about web construction beyond how to type up excessively oversized HTML tables.  <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie11" alt=":rolleyes:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> Anyway, speaking of star notes...let the math-nerdery continue! As long as the BEP is printing full runs of star notes, the plate position calculations work just like they do on regular notes.  The only quirk is that the standard run size for stars hasn't always been the same as for regular notes; nowadays, for example, stars of all denominations are still printed in runs of 100,000 sheets (=3,200,000 notes), even though regular notes of most denominations are printed in runs twice that size.  All that means is that when you look up the standard run size in the <a href="http://www.uspapermoney.info/general/runs.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.uspapermoney.info/general/runs.html" rel="nofollow">table</a>, you have to make sure you're looking at the star table and not the regular table.  Easy enough. The reason there gets to be a lot more added complexity in the star notes is that the BEP often prints star notes in partial print runs--sometimes because they don't need a full 3.2 million stars at once, and other times because an odd-length star run is a convenient way of using up whatever printed sheets happen to be left over at the end of the printing of a series.  Worse still, the BEP's numbering conventions for these partial star runs have varied quite a bit over time.  Let me go over these different conventions in order from simplest to most complex to explain, rather than in chronological order.... From about 1977 to 1995, partial star runs were implemented by simply setting up the numbering press exactly as though a full star run were being printed, and then stopping the press part way through the run.  Therefore, if you're just trying to check whether your star note has the correct plate position, you don't even have to care about whether it comes from a full run or a partial run; just look up the standard run size and do the calculation exactly as described in the top post.  (On the other hand, if you're trying to figure out how many star notes were printed for a given series, then you definitely have to keep track of the partial runs, since a side effect of this approach to numbering is that every partial run ends up having a bunch of gaps in the serial ranges printed, rather than neatly using all the serials in between the lowest number printed and the highest number printed.) Before 1977...some even odder things were going on, which created gaps of other types or in other places within the star runs.  But the good news is, the 1977-1995 rule still applies: none of these odd things were allowed to affect the plate position of a note, so the method described above will still give you the correct plate positions. From about 1999 to the present, a different numbering scheme is used--one which has the advantage of not allowing serialling gaps within print runs, but which unfortunately messes with the plate positions.  Under this system: (a) Every print run of star notes gets a full 3,200,000 serials assigned to it, even if it isn't going to use them all.  Thus every run begins at a serial number that's one more than a multiple of 3,200,000.  Run #1 for a given denomination and district always begins at 00000001, run #2 at 03200001, run #3 at 06400001, and so forth. (b) When a partial star run is printed, the serials actually used come from the low end of the run's assigned range.  So for example if run #2 is going to comprise only 60,000 sheets (=1,920,000 notes) instead of the full 100,000 sheets, then it'll use serials 03200001 to 05120000.  Serials 05120001 to 06400000 will be assigned but unused; run #3 will still start at 06400001 when it comes along.  Thus numbering gaps can occur *between* runs, just not *within* them. (c) The skip between serials on each sheet is equal to the number of sheets actually printed in the run.  So in the example above, the first 60,000 serials (03200001 to 03260000) will come from position A1, the next 60,000 serials (03260001 to 03320000) from position B1, and so forth.  This is pretty much what you'd expect for the numbering of a 60,000-sheet print run.  The trouble is that the run's starting serial was chosen based on the 100,000-sheet standard rather than the 60,000-sheet actual run, which is enough to break the formulas we were using. To correct for this, we "adjust" our note's serial number to what it *would* have been if the run had started at 00000001.  So if our note is actually from run #2, we need to subtract 3,200,000 from the serial number before doing the rest of the steps outlined in the top post--and when we do those steps, we use the actual run size of 1,920,000 notes, not the standard run size. For example, let's say we've got a 2003 $100 DB04040404*.  Checking the production figures, we see that this note was printed in a run exactly as described above: 1,920,000 notes long, starting at serial 03200001.  So, we subtract 3,200,000 from the serial, obtaining 840,404.  We divide by the run size of 1,920,000, obtaining about 0.4377.  This already has a whole-number part of 0, so we go on to the next step of multiplying by 32, obtaining about 14.01, which rounds up to 15.  Thus this note should have plate position G2 (but G4 is possible). Actually, the division step in the above process will always produce a number less than 1, because of the extra subtraction at the beginning.  So we could streamline the calculation: Instead of dividing by 1,920,000 and then immediately multiplying by 32, we could simply divide by 60,000, the run length expressed in *sheets* rather than notes. So our rule is: Take the serial number, subtract the starting serial of the print run, divide by the number of sheets in the print run, round *up* to a whole number, and convert that number to a plate position. One more example: Suppose we have 2003A $1 C06543210*.  The production stats show that this one came from a particularly odd partial run that used serials 06400001 through 07008000; that's a run of 608,000 notes, or 19,000 sheets.  So we calculate 06543210 - 06400000 = 143210, and then divide by 19,000, getting about 7.54, which rounds up to 8.  Thus this note should have plate position H1 (or perhaps H3). From about 1995 to 1999, everything in the previous section still applies, with one exception.  During these years, the BEP would occasionally break a star run into two sub-runs.  For purposes of the plate position calculation, you have to consider *only* the sub-run your note is actually in.  And if it's the second of the two sub-runs, then the starting serial of that sub-run may be a good bit odder looking than a straight multiple of 3,200,000.  But use it in the formula anyway, and all will be well. For example, consider 1995 $1 A10509130*.  Just by looking at the number, you can tell that this note is from star run #4 (which would cover serials 09600001 to 12800000, or part of that range).  But the production reports indicate that run #4 of the 1995 $1 Boston stars was printed as two sub-runs: first A09600001* to A10496000*, and then A10496001* to A10880000*.  (Serials 10880001 to 12800000 were thus not used at all.)  Our note is from the second sub-run, and that run comprises 10880000 - 10496000 = 384,000 notes, or 12,000 sheets.  So, we subtract the 10496000 from the serial number, obtaining 13,130; we divide this by the 12,000 sheets, obtaining about 1.09; and we round this up to 2.  Thus our note should have plate position B1 (or perhaps B3). Uncut sheets are similar.  You need to know how long the run was (which is easy--it's the difference between the serials of the notes on the sheet) and the starting serial for the run.  Then the method described for the recent star notes will work just fine.  Unfortunately, the BEP doesn't generally tell us the starting/ending serials for the sheet runs--we end up working them out ourselves, by collecting data on several sheets from a given printing, and then using all of the above calculations in reverse to work out the original print run. (Actually, that works for star notes, too--we've caught a few errors in the BEP production reports by realizing that the the star notes from a certain print run didn't actually have the plate positions that the BEP said they should've had.  So, if you find a star note with a wonky plate position, report it and see if you've discovered another case like this....) Finally, let me point out that the Excel sheet I linked in the top post *is* also set up to handle the irregular print runs discussed in this post...just give it the starting serial for the run in the appropriate cell, along with the other data.  Hope this helps!  <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie6" alt=":cool:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]

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