Note Market: post your notes
johnny010
Posts: 1,294 ✭✭✭✭✭
Hello
Have been thinking to get into notes at some point. My wife bought her first note at a show two weeks ago and I’ve quickly become quite interested.
Looking at the forum here, there are very few posts and overall activity vs the coin forum. Also from my research prices realized are still up over 2018/19 but seem to be coming back down vs 2021.
Is demand/interest for notes waining?
Understand this is a relatively mature market but surprised there isn’t more collector activity so just trying to understand a bit more before I jump in.
Notes I’m most interested in:
1875 $2 fr.391
1882 $100 gold fr.1207
1882 $500 gold fr.1216
1886 $1 Martha fr.217 is fine
1886 $5 fr.260
1896 Educational series
1899 $5 Chief fr.281
1901 $10 bison fr.120
1905 $100 gold fr.1179
1918 $2 Federal Reserve (although these seem over priced at the moment)
1922 $100 gold fr.1215
Thank for your thoughts,
JM
Comments
PM sent.
I cannot speak to US Large size currency but from what I have observed in the past year or so, it seemed pretty frothy (compared to World currency which has flattened out IMO).
Just a few other observations:
**https://sites.google.com/view/notaphilycculture/collecting-banknotes **
The market for currency has always been a smaller subset of the numismatic market with coins being the largest by far. Participants, board comments and transactions are all proportionally smaller.
The large size type notes that you list are among the most popular items in the currency field so the market is more established and with more transactions than many other less popular currency areas. Pricing and trends are easier to discern for this type of material.
There are a couple of observations.
However, since I don't follow large size type too closely, I couldn't comment on recent trends in this market over recent years. I'm sorry that I'm of no help there.
For this you could go to Heritage archives, search on the Fr. #s and order the results with most recent sales first. Compare notes of same grade and certification. Determine if there seems to be a consistent trend over the time period in question.
@johnny010, I’ve been collecting since the mid nineties and in those 30 years, yes, the large note market his increased significantly. We saw a large increase in interest and demand during and after Covid. Collect because you find something that you love and makes you feel good owning such as I do with these.
Nice examples @jfriedm56.
I’m sure at some point, you’d like to add a Chief.
@Steve_in_Tampa. Absolutely Steve. Just haven’t come across the right one yet. Zack.
Thanks
Love the notes and input from the fellow members here. Much appreciate. I’ll post up my first note soon.
Interest is dropping like a rock and you are smart to jump in now before they turn
My first note …I decided to go with an obsolete note because it’s high quality, had the note number stamped on the note, but was never put into circulation and as such is considered a remainder. I love the fact that the reverse has a shield and I’m guessing stars to represent the original colonies.
Chief...I was lucky enough to find and afford this one...
The Chief is one of one most collectible notes from what I’m hearing. Love the look and definitely the history.
I went to Rutgers in New Brunswick NJ. Hmmm I think I'll look for one of those bills.
Found one!
Yeah, but now you have to buy the other denominations from the bank. They include a $2, $3, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100 and $500. For some denominations, like the $3, there are two designs.
And pretty much every one is available here, for a price.
I learned in my collecting journey that I cannot have everything. There are some series I want in full, such as the Morgan CC set, which I have accomplished. The Bank of New Brunswick isn't one of them. And I closed my Ebay account for a variety of reasons.
NEWP
A beauty. Bright, fresh and well-centered. Better than many CU examples, you'd probably have to pay 65+ prices to find a nicer one.
Thanks
I’m trying to look at notes differently that I look at coins. For the 1891 I saw it at my LCS and they only bought it to get a coin deal done. The price was well below comps and anywhere else I could find, including ANA where a long time, upstanding dealer showed me his cost on his same note in same grade.
I have a few more notes that are en route.
Here’s a fun one that was not on my list above.
Picked this one up. In hand it looks much better than the photos suggest. The orange reverse was hard to capture the vibrance still left on this guy dating back to 1906.
From the 1907 Knickerbocker Crisis and issued in Portland. Very crazy story from over 100 years ago. I couldn’t find a finer graded script from this $1 run.
A rare A. W. Mellon courtesy autograph on a 1914 $5 FRN.
Aside from the cattywampus margins, a fairly good looking note.
Mr. Arkansas Collection? That's a pedigree that I've never seen before
The collection was just sold off. I thought this was a nice one for the grade and price.
Definitely a nice note! You have had some great ones to share with us lately
A few George’s.
Hmm
30+ years coin shop experience (ret.) Coins, bullion, currency, scrap & interesting folks. Loved every minute!
I like these. Never considered grouping them by image (George). Nice!
Thanks getting into this slowly. Have several nice ones I’m currently deciding on. In the meantime:
It seems like you're acquiring them at a fine pace. Don't rush and end up feeling like you settled on a note that you'll want to end up swapping out later. I feel like I made that mistake with a few notes because I was impatient.
Also, similarly to coins, your rate of acquisition will slow down as your collection gets more complete or you'll start expanding into other areas like fractionals, nationals or small-sized to get your "fix"
Speaking of fractionals 😉
A 10 cent Meredith Fractional with the green seal.
Excellent note guys
Keep them coming!!
What’s the average purchase rate?
One a month? One every six?
I'm probably a 1x/month collector these days. It's kind of nice that this section of the forum is drama free compared to the dumpster fire going on at the moment in the US coin section lol. Grab your popcorn before opening this one.
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1107346/w#latest
I'm thinking error notes may need some representation here
. Do you like errors @johnny010?
Wow that's awesome. I changed the thread title to encourage anyone to post here.
As for errors I've never looked at them, but the one you just posted is very cool!
Bought this one recently on Ebay for a reasonable $27. Notes on this issuer are scarce, maybe R4-R5 as an issuer but nearly all are unissued. Issued and high grade examples are rare.
I started collecting paper currency, sadly, because I am getting older and my eyesight is getting worse. Paper currency is just easier to see for my aging eyes. I consciously decided to collect mostly mid-grade PMG notes because after browsing for many months, I found that many notes in the 40-58 range look as nice as many MS examples. I do purchase MS examples when I can, but I have no qualms with most mid-grade notes. I am a huge fan of Civil War era fractional notes! I only discovered them last year, and most are very affordable.
Best regards,
Dwayne Sessom
The first year, a couple a month. Lately, Im lucky if I can find 1 or 2 a year to buy. These were the latest purchases...last year.
I’m a big fan of the fr 311! That and the $10 version are on my want list.
If you look closely both of these notes are fantastic. I absolutely love the look. Well done. I hope you’re able to acquire more notes soon.
I might have a surprise coming soon. Will see how negotiations pan out.
Anyone ever seen this note?
I find myself very interested. (This is not my note)
It closely resembles the 1905 $20 “Technicolor” note
@Steve_in_Tampa is that your note?
I read the comments and see it’s considered the pre-cursor to the technicolor.
Coincidentally I found the aforementioned while doing some Technicolor research, and I’m hoping to seal the deal on my first one this week.
Good news
I’ve closed the deal on a beautiful 1905 Technicolor. Very excited to get this one in hand and post photos hopefully in the next two weeks (seller is sending via registered mail for safety).
Guess the grade..