September 2013 Explained - Series 2009A $100 FRNs

Joe,
Would you please list the rare ones to look out for? Thanx,
John1

Perhaps... But $30 million in $100 bills is only 300,000 notes... less than a full block. Less than a full run, even. Surely that can't be the only explanation for the spike, can it?

No, "mashing" was its own problem, independent of the paper creasing problem that plagued Series 2009 notes. Kind of makes one wonder if the emergence of yet a new problem caused the BEP almost to overcorrect to make darn sure that they could prove their abilities after all.




I'm not quite sure what you're looking for here -- what did you have in mind? If you collect by block and look for both Fort Worth and DC notes in cases when portions of the block were serialed at both facilities, the LLE block from DC is relatively scarce compared to FW. Only two runs runs of the LLE block were serialed at DC (serials 51200001 to 57600000), but that's still 6.4 million notes. Conversely, only one run of the LBI and LDB blocks were serialed at FW (serials 96000001 to 99200000 in each case) while the remainder of those blocks were serialed at DC. That's 3.2 million notes in each case. Which is not to say that they will be easy to find; I've not found either. For a while, the LLE notes from DC were turning up in the area where I live.

As I've mulled over this more, I've concluded for a number of reasons that the spike in $100 note production in September 2013 is in fact likely primarily due to this mashing problem.

It should be noted that the New Yorker article is dated August 13, and it references an internal BEP memo from July. That means the figure of 30 million defective notes can reflect production at the Washington DC facility through no later than July.

Printing of Series 2009A $100 notes at Washington DC began in January 2013, with the first notes serialed in February (an initial sheet-replacement star run). Serialing of regular notes began in March. Through July, 83 runs of regular notes had been serialed as well as 2 standard-sized star runs and 2 partial star runs, for a grand total of 272,640,000 notes. That means that at a minimum, the 30 million figure represents a defective rate in excess of 10%. Not knowing when the Fed examined notes or the precise date of the internal memo, it's possible that the number of notes that had been delivered to the Fed only reflected production through June (or earlier). Subtracting July production, the number of notes produced through June was 199,040,000, in which case the 30 million figure would have represented a defective rate in excess of 15%. In either case, the Fed was no doubt alarmed at the high percentage of unacceptable notes it had received.

The New Yorker article states that the Fed returned more than 30 million unacceptable notes that it had received from the BEP and that another $30 billion worth were waiting examination. (I'm inclined to think that $30 billion represented both Series 2009A as well as Series 2009, although the article does not make that clear; through July, only $27.2 billion worth of Series 2009A notes had been produced by the BEP while more than $100 billion worth of Series 2009 $100s had been produced before that series production was halted. In any case,...) the article goes on to say that the Fed would not accept any more $100 notes produced at the Washington DC facility until further notice. That means that in addition to the 30+ million notes that were rejected as unacceptable, the 44 more runs of regular notes plus 1 standard-sized star run and 1 partial star run produced at Washington DC in August and September - that is, 144+ million notes - presumably were not accepted by the Fed either.

Thus, it seems plausible that production of 615+ million notes at the Fort Worth facility in September included at a minimum some 174 million "extra" to make up for the Washington DC notes that weren't acceptable to the Fed. And if all 272+ million Series 2009A notes that had been delivered to the Fed were ultimately returned for a refund, the Fort Worth Facility would have had to increase production significantly in order to make up for the 416+ million Washington DC notes whose status was now in limbo.

This is a condensed version of low production run/runs.

SERIES 2009A $100 by RUN/RUNS UNDER 10-MIL

LB 960 00001 I - LB 992 00000 I fw 3,200,000


LD 960 00001 B - LD 992 00000 B fw 3,200,000

LG 000 00001 C - LG 064 00000 C fw 6,400,000

LI 000 00001 B - LI 032 00000 B fw 3,200,000

LL 512 00001 E - LL 576 00000 E dc 6,400,000