The newest resource for paper money collectors is now available online. PCGS Currency has expanded the PCGS Currency Population Report, a report by grade of more than 250,000 notes authenticated and certified by PCGS Currency, to include population by serial number block. Updated daily and available by subscription to members of the PCGS Currency Collectors Club and all PCGS Currency Authorized Dealers, the new “Pop by Block” feature gives collectors and Small Size U.S. currency specialists the opportunity to view PCGS Currency grade populations by serial number block.

“Small Size U.S. currency collectors and specialists now have the availability to research population data and view the relative scarcity of individual blocks by grade,” says PCGS Currency Vice President Laura A. Kessler. “Our new “Pop by Block” population report expands the many resources available to our members. With it’s ease of navigation and 24 hour availability at your fingertips, collectors can quickly find and research pertinent information for over 150,000 small size notes by block. Our initial small size series release includes Legal Tenders, Silver Certificates, Federal Reserve Bank Notes, Federal Reserve Notes, WWII Emergency Notes, and Gold Certificates.”

While the initial release of population data for serial number blocks includes just Small Size notes, the data for Large Size notes by serial number block will soon be released as well. Population data for Canadian notes by serial number block will follow, as well.

“A great deal of work has gone into this project,” stated Jason W. Bradford, President of PCGS Currency. “Our experts have gone over the data line by line to ensure the accuracy of this report. The PCGS Currency Population Report expansion to include serial number blocks will provide collectors of all U.S. notes to gather more information and accurately gauge the relative scarcity of specific blocks by grade.”

PCGS Currency Collectors Club memberships are available online by clicking on our Collectors Club page, or you can join by calling (309) 222-8200. All PCGS Currency Collector Club members can submit notes directly to PCGS Currency, access the online Population Report, and receive a free sample note and a copy of the PCGS currency Grading Standards guide.

The first of six short videos will cover topics such as how to detect a counterfeit note, the art of banknote design and how new notes enter circulation. The episodes will feature guests from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the Federal Reserve Board and the United States Secret Service.

Episode One -- An introduction to the $100 public education program.

Episode 2 -- The New $100 Note Podcast Series : How To Detect A Counterfeit

Bank Notes and Related Graphic Arts from the Collections of Vsevolod Onyshkevych and Princeton University – August 30, 2010, to January 2, 2011

Paper money as a form of art might seem the makings of a rather small exhibition, to judge from the modern bills of the United States and Europe. Bank notes, however, have constituted one of the dominant forms of visual communication for the past two centuries, and in many cases can be seen as works of art in their own right. Princeton University’s Numismatic Collection is featuring currency worth looking at in the exhibition “Money on Paper” on view in the August 30, 2010, through January 2, 2011.

New Jersey, 1 shilling, December 31, 1763.
Printed by James Parker, Woodbridge.

Because British colonial policies resulted in a dearth of circulating coins, the American colonies were the home of the earliest regular issues of paper money. Illustration was applied to colonial currency as an anti-counterfeiting device as well as for aesthetic purposes. Not surprisingly, the most inventive printer of paper money of the time was Benjamin Franklin, who devised a system of transferring the vein patterns of tree leaves to printing plates to foil counterfeiters. The Princeton exhibition includes a large selection of Franklin’s nature-print notes, as well as issues of Paul Revere and the South Carolina engraver Thomas Coram, who brought classical imagery to that colony’s bank notes.

One of the highlights of the exhibit will be the first public display of the recently discovered banknote engraving of a grouse by John James Audubon, the great wildlife illustrator’s first published work. On display with a sample sheet containing the vignette will be an original watercolor by Audubon, a steel printing plate from The Birds of America, and the Princeton first edition of the elephant folio book open to the page with Audubon’s drawing of the pinnated grouse.

Asher B. Durand, one of America’s greatest painters, was also a major figure in the development of bank note art in this country. Along with his brother Cyrus, who invented a highly decorative series of anti-counterfeiting devices, he developed a classical, patriotic approach to bank note design that dominated the medium for the first half of the nineteenth century.

Montgomery $1,000
Confederate States of America, $1,000, Montgomery, May 22, 1861.
Portraits of John C. Calhoun and Andrew Jackson.

A section of the Princeton exhibit will explore the divergence of imagery on the bank notes of northern and southern issuers before and during the Civil War. Collectors of paper money will be especially interested by the complete set, in Extremely Fine condition, of six notes printed by the National Bank Note Company in New York and smuggled into the Confederacy in 1861 for distribution as notes of Montgomery, Alabama, and Richmond, Virginia. The American section of the exhibition ends with the high point of American bank note art, the Educational Series of 1896, designed and engraved by some of the most important illustrators of the day. (more…)