Star banknotes

Are star notes truly as scarce as one is lead to believe? I try to use cash as much as possible these days. Two friends have had their credit cards hacked, and checks are becoming downright expensive.

At any rate, I found two in the last batch of $1,000. I don't collect banknotes, so never paid much attention before now.

Using this table for the $50 star note Series 2013 https://www.uspapermoney.info/serials/f2013_l.html

There were 67,200,000 MA non-star banknotes printed and 4,736,000 star banknotes printed so 7%.

spauldingph

Are star notes truly as scarce as one is lead to believe? I try to use cash as much as possible these days. Two friends have had their credit cards hacked, and checks are becoming downright expensive.

At any rate, I found two in the last batch of $1,000. I don't collect banknotes, so never paid much attention before now.

I would try using this mycurrencycollection site & use his “Look up Star Notes” (green button) function (below left).  It will tell you if your note comes from a large or smaller run. I have his site & many other Social Media resources available on my Social Media Links page. He also has a link (algorithm) to check if your banknotes has a fancy serial number too.

Re: “Are star notes truly as scarce as one is lead to believe? ”

But the short answer is, "no, more than likely not scarce" simply b/c the BEP typically produce as many star notes as Canada produces one prefix (10,000,000) or even more at times for a block. The largest run of asterisk replacements from the Bank of Canada was 2M (only done once or twice for our $1.00 notes). So usually, when it comes to US star replacements, you want them in UNC (or near UNC) or just keep them if you can afford it (but don't expect much of a premium). 

Hope that helps!

Edit: did not know @rsirian1  had answered this so quickly! 

Thanks rsirian1 and Serial_Number_8. 

I spent a pleasant hour reading up on star notes. It turns out the $20.  is fairly common at 3,520,000. The $50. is a sheet type and a little scarcer at 640,000. Too bad it's rather beat up. 

I'm having fun with the ‘cool serial number’ section. 

In random circulation, star notes have an occurrence of 0.3% to 0.5% of banknotes.

Steve Feller (IBNS) did a survey on US star notes in the 1990s, and i did a similar survey of Irish notes in the late 1990s. We both got similar results. 

Currently, I am harvesting star notes from Polish currency, and I am getting a similar amount turning up - about one note in 200.

In old Irish notes (pre-2001), and in current Polish notes star notes tend to be of an older print run than the notes they are mixed in with.