This site is a passion project for a numismatic collection of U.S. paper currency. Issue lists will occasionally have markers (√) which indicate a piece in my collection. It is my intent that these markers are unubtrousive and easily ignored.
Prior to the outbreak of Civil War, the U.S. government had declined to print paper currency; instead relying on the Mint to coin silver and gold specie for circulating tender. With the Union still recovering from the banking Panic of 1857, the federal treasury was unable to meet the day-to-day demands of funding a government at war. Congress had many times before authorized the printing and sale of interest-bearing Treasury Notes, similar to government bonds; but lacked the time it would take to convert these notes into hard coin.
In 1861, Congress authorized the printing of non-interest-bearing notes, payable on demand to the holder in silver or gold coin. These "Demand Notes" were offered as payment for debts of the government in the form of a "promise to pay bearer" at a later time; making Demand Notes freely transferable from person-to-person. The following year, Congress officially designated outstanding Demand Notes legal tender and authorized a new type of United States Notes to be printed instead of new Demand Notes. Paper fiat currency had been adopted, backed by the faith of reserve deposits of silver and gold in treasury vaults. All U.S. currency issued since 1861 remains valid and redemable at face value.
Demand Notes and early United States Notes were printed by contract with private companies for the first few years of production. Additional overprinting of serial numbers and seals was performed by the Treasury Department prior to issue. In 1874, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) was created for the production of secure government documents and took over full printing of currency by 1877. To this day, paper (or substrate) is produced by private contract exclusively for the BEP; all other materials including ink, printing plates, and presses are owned and operated by the BEP. Though designs and equipment have changed drastically, the printing process itself has remained largely the same--a layered, multi-step production to create the final note; comprising offset ink-based printing of colored designs, intaglio pressing of green backs followed by faces in black, and colored overprinting of face elements (including serial numbers and seals).
Unlike coins which are produced with the issuing year as part of the design, banknotes are printed in multi-year series which are named for the authorization year. For example, Series 1993 notes were printed April 1994 through May 1997 according to production figures released by the BEP. Without an accompanying production report, it is impossible to tell the month or year a given note was printed. A new series is introduced with a major update to the note type, such as an image, color, or paper redesign; a suffix letter will be added or incremented with minor note changes, including new signatures or production processes. Until recently, there were multiple types of notes in circulation: United States (or Legal Tender) Notes, National and Federal Reserve Bank Notes, Silver Certificates, and even Gold Certificates; in addition to the familiar Federal Reserve Notes.
Notes are printed by powered presses operating at high speed and pressure. A metalic plate is compressed into a single sheet, transferring the etched image of multiple notes deep into the paper. Each image on the face plate is engraved with a letter or letter-number identifier to indicate the plate position for the resulting note. A unique plate number on both the face and the back of the note identify both plates used to produce the note. Some notes have been identified with mismatched face-back plate numbers from differing series, presses, or print runs. These "mules" are sought after by specialized collectors.
Initially printed , new presses were introduced in 1918 with plates large enough to print . In 1929, federal currency was reduced in size by 30%, allowing to be printed on the same size sheet as eight "large" notes. Beginning in 1952, new technologies were introduced to prevent distortion of notes during the intaglio wetting and drying process, allowing for to be used. By 1957, the distortion was completely eliminated, and were standardized for all denominations. Most recently, were introduced in 2014.
Finished sheets are stacked in batches, then precisely cut into single-note stacks. Each stack of notes has been printed such that the serial numbers are already in sequential order. This means that the notes on a single sheet do not have sequential serial numbers, but are instead skip-ordered based on the size of the print run itself. For example, if a print run consists of 20,000 sheets, serial numbers of each note on a single sheet would increment by 20,000 per plate position. As such, each stacked group of sequentially numbered notes will have the same plate position.
With the BEP running out of space in their Washington, D.C. headquarters, the decision was made to open a "Western Facility" in Fort Worth, Texas. Beginning production in 1990, this was the first federal facility to print currency outside of the seat of government. Similar to coins produced at branches of the U.S. Mint, notes printed at the Western Facility have a facility mark of FW next to the face plate number.
The Federal Reserve System is a central banking authority created by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 to monitor and regulate U.S. regional banks. It is proportioned into twelve regional districts each headed up by a Federal Reserve Bank. Created by Congress to avoid financial crises of the federal monetary system, such as the banking Panic of 1907, each Federal Reserve Bank is tasked with issuing Federal Reserve Notes to private banks within its district to facilitate commerce transactions. As such, the BEP no longer issues currency; rather, it produces currency for and at the request of individual Federal Reserve Banks.
Serial numbers are required to be on all notes printed by the BEP, both as a way to prevent counterfeiting as well as to help the Federal Reserve track the notes in circulation. Each note of the same type, denomination, and series has a unique serial number following a specific formula. In the case of Federal Reserve Notes, the eight-digit serial number begins and ends with a letter, such as A01234567A. The letter prefix indicates which issued the note, while the letter suffix advances for every 100,000,000 notes printed; though neither the letters O or Z are used. Beginning with Series 1996, a was prepended to the serial number for all denominations of five-dollars and higher, such as QA01234567A. The combination of prefix and suffix letters create "blocks" of notes; a note with serial number PD01234567C would be part of the PDC block.
Sometimes a note must be pulled from the finished stack due to a print error; it will be replaced by a "star" note--one where the letter suffix is replaced with a star, like A01234567*. Entire sheets are sometimes replaced in the same way. No attempt is made to match serial numbers replaced by star notes, and no records are kept as to which serial numbers were replaced. As printing errors are infrequent, star notes are comparitively rare in circulation.