u/blueberrisorbet

I have no need of two 1741's and want to look into selling one of them. The first two images are the first note, then the second two images are the second note.

Both identically graded by PMG, Fine 15. The first is a straight grade and the second has comment of "Stain."

I like the second one more, due to the preserved signatures and overall better paper quality compared to the first. I don't find the stain too distracting. There is also a contemporary annotation on the face of 4/9/(19)07?! which I find charming.

Thoughts?

Every now and then work takes me to DC, where it is obligatory for me to hit up the paper money highlights between meetings.

I haven’t taken a BEP tour for more than 10 years so went on one this time. It’s a lot more structured now than I remembered. A segment of the tour focused on identifying counterfeit measures on paper money. It was hilarious seeing people borrowing $20 bills from their neighbors because many people don’t carry cash anymore. Love the fresh currency ink smell that’s constantly wafting from the vents. I could work there all day.

Glad to report they are fully stocked with Series 2021 uncut sheets. They’re sold out of $20s for some reason. I have enough uncut sheets to last me for a lifetime but still picked up a $50 8-subject and a $100 4-subject.

It appears the BEP massively updated the paper money displays since I was last there buying uncut sheets in 2023, but interesting they didn’t have any genuine large size notes on display, only small size. Ah well, I don’t think the Visitor Center lighting is conducive to paper preservation anyway.

Then I hopped over to the Smithsonian Museum of American History to pay my respects to the 1874 $500 LT, probably a million dollar note today if it can be sold, and the 1863 spread eagle $100 LT. Less rare, but still a six-figure note. I don’t give a fig for the 1933 Saint Gaudens that has a group of ancient old men huddled over it in the same room.

Great to see that the Smithsonian considers the numismatic collection significant enough that they stationed an armed guard at the entrance 😆

Went from owning exactly one fractional note to owning a fractional shield 😂

For those that don't know, fractional shields were produced in 1867-8 by the US Treasury to help bank staff and the general public identify genuine and counterfeit fractional currency notes. The shields consists of 39 first to third series fractional notes, all printed on one side only. Out of the 39, 4 are hand-signed by Colby/Spinner or Jeffries/Spinner. This shield is somewhat unique as all 4 of the signed notes are Jeffries/Spinner, whereas I find the Colby combination to be more common and usually most shields have at least one Colby.

Many of these shields were stored away in a Treasury basement because of lack of interest by banks and post offices, and a lot of the available samples ended up with spotting due to dampness. The basement also flooded at some point and so many shields also have a water line running through the middle. I found this example rather handsome as while it has some spotting, there is no discrete line running across indicative of flooding. Many unsold shields were ultimately destroyed, with a few hundred estimated to remain to the present day. This is the most common grey variant shield - there are also green and pink ones that sell for five figures at auction. The green and pink were earlier "experimental" shields.

I've seen a few of these pop up in online auctions through the years, but didn't realize how large it was until I saw one IRL! It makes for a handsome display and luckily this one already has a great frame and a wire hook on the back for hanging :)

I've thought for a long time that some very low-value banknotes can be used as business cards (or any other giveaway print matter).

Case in point are these Lebanon 10,000 Livres, which is worth USD $0.11 each. I got these notes in UNC bundles at $0.15 per. With fancier business cards costing up to $0.30 per card, using these notes as business cards arguably costs less, and they're even printed by a French security printer with advanced features that you'll never find on a business card ;) My idea is to stamp over my name and other necessary information on the back of the note in the blank space next to the monument and overlapping with the watermark area. No respect to the Lebanese people, but I feel I have an use case for the currency that has fallen into severe hyperinflation, even if the notes themselves might not be circulating too much anymore.

Obviously, this wouldn't be my professional business card, just a personal/hobby one. I didn't do this when I worked at an LCS, but it would have been neat then!

My ideal note is actually the Hong Kong 1 cent with its blank back and small size, but these notes have actually gotten quite expensive. Another beautiful contemporary note that is found often in bulk is the Madagascar 100 Ariary (~USD $0.02 market value) but I found the "stamping space" to be more cramped.

In the summer of 2024, student protesters forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina (one of the daughters of the first president of Bangladesh, who was featured on all the notes of the previous Bangladeshi note series) to flee into India. The paper money was subsequently updated to remove portraits of the first president of Bangladesh, and now it features neutral historical buildings.

I've always found Bangladeshi note print quality to be notoriously poor (especially the lower denomination 2- and 5-taka notes). However, this new series especially the blue 100 has remarkable intaglio print on the back -- definitely a note to consider picking up. These notes are printed locally in Bangladesh by their government printing organization rather than being outsourced to a foreign company like De La Rue like many developing countries, so in that sense we should extend some slack to the print quality.