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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Numbers, post: 845348, member: 11668&quot;]Yes, if serial number 01234567 was replaced by a star, then you&#039;d find the star at that exact spot, right between 01234566 and 01234568. This was true in the early 20th century and is still true today. (But note that it&#039;s false for some other countries&#039; currency--Canada for example now uses &quot;top-up&quot; notes just the way you describe, sticking in all the replacements at the end to top-up the run to its full quantity.)</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>You&#039;re correct that a serial number which has been replaced by a star note is not reused in that series.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>There have been *large* variations over time in the frequency of printing defects which require replacement by star notes. Nowadays, about 0.5% of all notes are replaced by stars (1 in 200). The 1934 $5&#039;s had a replacement rate of around 1.1% (1 in 90). The rates got crazy high in the &#039;50s and &#039;60s when the BEP was first getting used to dry-intaglio printing: better than 10% of all 1957 $1 silver certificates were stars!</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>In the &#039;30s, when the quantity of currency printed was much lower than it is today, every single note would&#039;ve been hand-inspected, so replacing defective notes by stars wouldn&#039;t&#039;ve been too much trouble. It was much faster than the older system, used before 1910, of replacing every defective note with a specially prepared reprint carrying the *same* serial number as the original! Today, the replacement process is largely automated, as the printed sheets are inspected by machine and only spot-checked by human inspectors. (The automated inspection was introduced in the &#039;70s, with the result that an unusually large number of major errors got out in Series 1974 while the system was being fine-tuned....)</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>For efficiency reasons, the BEP no longer uses single star notes to replace single error notes. They either replace an entire sheet by a sheet of stars (if the error is caught before the sheets are cut), or an entire strap of 100 notes by a strap of stars (if the error is caught in the final inspection before the notes are shrink-wrapped and sent out).&nbsp; But the stars still end up in exactly the spot formerly filled by the defective notes they&#039;re replacing.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Although we can&#039;t be sure, it&#039;s still entirely possible that your four &quot;missing&quot; serial numbers never left the BEP. They might&#039;ve been replaced by star notes, and then someone might&#039;ve pulled those star notes out of the pile at some point. Few people were collecting currency at the time these notes were issued, so the removal of the stars would&#039;ve presumably been done at a later time--perhaps one of your ancestors showed the notes to a collector buddy (at some point after collecting paper became popular in the &#039;60s), and ended up selling the much-more-valuable star notes while keeping the common notes for their sentimental value.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Or perhaps not. I *strongly* doubt that any collector has rifled through the $1&#039;s in the scan you posted, because the last two notes pictured form a changeover pair (consecutive serials with different series/signatures). Anybody pulling out the more valuable notes would surely have grabbed that pair...so the missing 17 notes probably just went their separate way in the banking system before this batch of notes ended up in your great-uncle&#039;s hands.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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