Series 2009 $10 Notes From The Jb-C Block

Welcome to CCF Joe.

I have a few questions.

How were you able to narrow face plate B56 to just the JB-C block ?
Where do you access the BEP plate printing log ?
Are you interpreting "Bad Plate # B4" as an engraving error ?

I have many series 2009 $10 notes, but I'm a star note collector and do not have any JB-C notes, and will look for them in the future.

Thanks! Yes, it has really turned into searching for that needle. I've concluded that I need to expand the search beyond my own geographical region, which is why it would help to have other sets of eyes around the country looking for this block.




Great, thanks! To answer your questions:

Face plate 56 was used in sequence with face plates 55, 57 and 59. Plates 55 and 56 were not used long and were replaced by plates 64 and 61, respectively; 59 was eventually replaced by 60. By recording serial and plate data from lots and lots notes for the entire Series 2009, I found that those plates appear in most of the JB-C block. 57, 60, 61 and 64 also appear in the JH-A block (run 8+) and JJ-A block (run 7+) - basically blocks that were serialed in the same month as JB-C - plus an occasional appearance in JF-C and JG-*. 57 was on the press for an unusually long time and appears in many more blocks. But 55 and 56 (what I have recorded so far) have been limited to JB-C, mostly run 2.

A few years ago, I made an FOIA request to the BEP for records of plate usage for a project that I was working on, which is how I came to know the details of these plates.

I think it is possible that "bad plate #" could mean an engraving error because there are a few other instances in the plate logs with similar comments. For example, a couple of entries have comments that read "Wrong plate #G4" (Series 2009 $1 back plate 142) and "F2 plate # is not right" (Series 2009A $100 back plate 125). On the other hand, there is also an entry that reads "E3 Plate # nonprintable" (Series 2009 $1 face plate 136). So as to the $10 face plate B56, I'm attempting to determine if "Bad Plate #" means wrong number or nonprintable. It would be far cooler if it meant wrong number!

I'm up to 10,817 so far

But yes, even 10,817 is a large enough sample size, for a few reasons. First, the data is well-mixed and is close to being randomly distributed throughout the series. Second, excluding JB* (which was reported by the BEP as the very first star run of the series and yet does not appear to exist, as no notes from the run are known), the data include notes from all of the other 232 print runs in the series. Moreover, the data include at least one note from more than 80% of all 10,000-sheet stacks used in the series. This is significant because each 200,000-sheet run is comprised of 20 10,000-sheet stacks (the standard unit used in the printing process), so 80% of all 10,000-sheet stacks means that on average, 16 of 20 stacks in a given run are represented in the data. Third, unlike $1 or $100 note production, the volume of $10 note production does not usually require simultaneous use of more than one press at a time. As a result, the transition between two different plate sequences tends to be fairly sharply defined. Once a new sequence starts to appear in the data, there is typically little back and forth between the old and new sequences, making it easier to identify the block/run limits of the sequence.




The documents that I've received from the BEP have taken many forms, and I've never received the same format twice. Here is the page that shows usage of Series 2009 $10 face plates 55, 56, 57 and 59 and their subsequent replacement. Count down 31 lines to see where FP 56 was loaded to the press on 1/31/2013.

Wow!

I've been compiling plate numbers observed on $2 bills was well as $100 bills, but not tens.

Is there a comprehensive listing of plate numbers used for each series and denomination somewhere?

DCMcoins, did you find anything interesting on the $100s?

That's a good point and brings up a related "question unknown" that I'm trying to answer: Whatever the problem was with note B4, would it have met the BEP's criteria for destruction? This is a critical question because for all I know, I've been on a wild goose chase the whole time...

I suspect that you are correct, namely, that whenever a problem arises that involves plate damage of some kind (e.g., "Dig D2" and "Cracked Plate - G4 Note") that BEP personnel go back and scrutinize the sheets that were printed most recently from the problem plate, looking particularly at the note or notes where the problem was identified. Based on a comparison of registration counts of the "plate on" and "plate off" dates with observed plate numbers from notes in circulation, I'd also guess that all of the sheets that display evidence of the problem are discarded and contribute toward the overall spoilage rate.

But how are sheets selected for destruction? Given that sheets are printed in sequences of 4 (or 3 in the case of SOI), does the BEP have a mechanism to cherrypick select sheets? Possibly, but I don't really know.

In the case of Series 2009 $10 FP 56, the problem with note B4was not noticed until six days after the plate was put into service and more than 27,000 impressions had been made. Based on that figure, and provided that sheets from that plate weren't otherwise destroyed prior to serial overprinting, I'd expect FP 56 to turn up in about half of a run (27,000 sheets x 4 plates in sequence = 108,000 sheets).

Notes from other plate positions on FP 56 exist, so that at least tells me that all of the sheets were not discarded en masse.



However, the two FP 56 notes that I have observed come from the left half of the sheet. Three others reported to me also come from the left half of the sheet. I've received just a single report of a FP 56 note from the right half of the sheet, position A4. I haven't seen that note myself, but if that report is accurate, then the at least some sheets from the right half were overprinted with serials, in which case notes from position B4ought to exist.

The difficulty has been finding notes from run 2 at all. I've only found 11 notes from the right half of that run, and I've received reports of 9 others. But it is not possible to draw conclusions about FP 56 without additional data. Based on what data that I do have, I suspect that most sheets from FP 56 were overprinted with serials and that they make up about half of JB-C run 2. But not being able to find notes from run 2 (regardless of plate number) leaves me not knowing either way.

Hence my entreaty for help with finding notes from the JB-C block!




None that I know of aside from internal BEP records. Not being able to find this information anywhere is the reason that I started keeping my own records.

Have you recorded any Series 2009A $100s from plate position F2? One of the plate logs included the comment "F2 plate # is not right" on Series 2009A $100 back plate 125. That plate was part of the sequence 122-124-125-126. BP 125 was on the press for 11 days before it was replaced by BP 128. It was used to make 150,000+ impressions, so notes from plate position F2 could easily exist in 5.5+ runs, if those sheets weren't destroyed. I don't have enough serial and plate data from $100s to narrow down which runs BP 125 would appear in. As best as I can tell, it would be somewhere in the LB-F and/or LB-G blocks.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who logs serial/plate data! Let me know if there's any other data you need. Most of mine is from Series 1995-2001 I kept when I was 8... have globs of data since then, and recently restarted logging. Not much data, but any bit might help.