Noteworthy Notes: Military Payment Certificates Rank High Among Collectors
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Some PCGS Rare Coin Market Report readers may wonder what exactly makes a banknote “noteworthy” and how one would be selected to be featured. While there is no precise special formula, the decision was made easy after considering how hard it was for the PCGS team to recall from its collective memory how many Military Payment Certificate (MPC) errors – especially ones with some dramatic flair – we have ever handled. The consensus was very, very few, in addition to this Series 541 10¢ Fractional with an inverted and misaligned back (more on the misalignment later) that we recently had the privilege of grading.
The most shocking part of the error isn’t necessarily the fact that the back is printed upside-down vis-à-vis its face printing. What immediately stands out to the eye is that there are portions of two different reverse subjects, each split into halves, at the top and bottom of the note, with the white margin curiously running horizontally through the middle. In this context, the misalignment should not be considered its own classification of error (or a second, independent type of error in addition to the inverted back), but rather viewed more as a consequence of the inverted back.
See the whole article here: https://www.pcgs.com/news/noteworthy-notes-military-payment-certificates
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Comments
Yes, I had the a similar thought seeing this note-I've never seen this error on an MPC before. However, understanding how it was created, the strong suggestion is that there are more of these somewhere out there, as this error would have been created as part of a sheet, all of which would be errors.
However, MPC's don't rate particularly high in the ranks of currency collecting. (Bad pun intended.) It's one of the more esoteric areas with relatively few collectors. Maybe a Private as a category of currency collecting. This note, however, is clearly a General. It might appeal more to the error collector than the MPC collector and, as you note, is one of few that would have that dual appeal and crossover interest.