Fenntucky Mike

Not really, but.... Most of the Ukrainian notes coming up for auction/sale as of late are duplicates of examples I already have but some would be upgrades for me. So do I take the opportunity to replace a few low grades in my set or not, I'm not so sure right now. There are many factors in a decision to upgrade your collection, as a collector you would of course want the best examples available (that are within your means). I'm definitely not upgrading anything unless it's a 2+ increase in grade, I do have a few AU notes I would like to get in BU condition. Those are the easy decisions but most of the current notes I'm seeing are only a 1 or 2 tier increase in grade, all BU examples. Those are the notes that I'm having trouble with, I just can't seem to generate enough enthusiasm to want to upgrade those notes. Added to my lack of "want to" is the cost of such upgrades and that I'm currently concentrating on the coin side of my collecting endeavors. This question (to upgraded or not) and the number of upgrades available is a bit of a reflection of my collecting style, meaning that I'll tend to grab the best available note for my sets knowing that there are better notes out there (I religiously check population reports). I tend not to wait, at some level this question is self inflected and also unavoidable. So many factors, the increased popularity of Ukrainian notes is yet another. With more collectors will more notes become available? Do I now practice patience and wait? The thought process being, more newly graded notes will become available in the very near future because sellers will have more graded as this latest class of notes are snapped up by new collectors. Then of course there is the question do I submit raw notes, modern Ukrainian notes are readily available raw and in good condition, I'm thinking this will be the route I take in the very near future, especially with the harder to obtain notes (I already have a healthy stash of raw notes). At this time I'm going to wait it out and pass on nonsignificant upgrades, holding out for notes that will complete my collection. Waiting will also have the added benefit of allowing me to focus on the coin side for the moment and to allow me to do some more in-depth research into the Ukrainian notes I currently have. Can't have a Journal entry without a picture of a note, got these a few weeks back. They're basically stamps and there a few unlisted variants, they also have a cool history/story that I'll share one day.

Not a note or even scrip but it was made to look like a bill. Man this thing is fragile but I guess it is an 87yr old, .027 thick piece of wood, what do you want. If you ever get something similar be very careful not to bend it in the direction of the wood grain, it'll break.

Here's what people are asking for similar US bills on ebay. Yours is worth somewhere between these asking prices and face value. Probably much closer to face value, $20 -$40 over face maybe, depending on condition. IMO

+10 = 1,921

So close on the serial # if it was 4188814 you'd have a radar, I don't think there is any added value in the #. Not sure what the extra ink is but I don't think it is a printing error. Does it match up to any of the features of a $1 bill?

+8 = 1,911

Here's a video the NBU did of the Commemorative note.

That note with the mechanical error just got reposted on ebay, I'd say they have it described fairly now. $30 it could be yours.

Sniped again.... We'll see where these notes land in the registry. If they do end up here..... This one was a little surprising, I had a decent number on there for what it was. Guess I'm going to have to adjust to a rising market. That's a lot of to's.

It probably obstructs the UV features a little bit but they are still visible. In the last row of images you can see the security fibers through the holder. The images of the 10 Karbovantsiv are of an ungraded note in a regular holder. The initial thing that didn't look right is with a UV feature that large you can typically see a faint outline of it or a shadow or shaded area under regular lighting. If you hold it just right. Here's a pic of a 50 Karbovantsiv under standard lighting with some slight backlighting. The latent imprint is clearly visible.

A new note arrived the other day, always a joyous event. It was a P 82b, a note that the seller had multiples of, a note that you don't see as often as it's counterpart (82a). As soon as I saw this note I checked the PMG Population Report, five notes graded at 68 and 1 at 65. I don't keep a week by week record of the populations but I do check them out every Tuesday when they are updated and from what I recalled the five 68's are all new meaning they were all submitted together. Sweet, now I'm pretty confident that the seller has multiples of this note, so I wait. Over the course of two month's time I watched one note sell then a second, I'm now watching the third note (I think), it gets relisted a couple of times, a price drop and I buy it. Sweet it looks great! Or does it? Something not quite right here... To clarify things a little, the major difference between 82a and 82b is a Latent Imprint (amongst other things). The Latent Imprint is visible under UV light and displays the denomination "3 КРБ" on the left front of the note, directly behind the depiction of the statue of Lybid (mythical sister of Kyi, Schek and Khoryv. The founders of Kyiv). Here's a few images of a 10 Karbovantsiv (84b) with Latent Imprint, the 3 Karbovantsi should look the same except with "3" displayed instead of "10". Ok, easy enough. I don't do this with every note I own but I'd say at least 75% of the time I'll examine the note/s under UV light. So let's take a look, uh oh. That stinks, no Latent Imprint where it should be. A mechanical error. Dang it. Don't get me wrong, I don't have the best equipment so I could be mistaken but I'm feeling pretty confident I'm correct. This is not my first "mechanical error" on a label, hey people make mistakes, no big deal. PMG/NGC are always super helpful and with something like this they will be more than happy to take a look at it and reholder it with a new label at no charge if the label is incorrect. I've had a label corrected before, with a coin, easy peasy. PMG/NGC also guarantee the grade, so if the label is changed the grade will stay at 68 and that is actually pretty awesome because if it is a P-82a that means it would be the highest graded, by 2 points! I'll absolutely be sending this in to be reexamined. But until I have a submission ready to send this note with I'll be housing it in a signature set, so that I don't forget about it. That leads me to the final question. I'm not going to put this note in any of my competitive sets but what about the other P-82b's that were in the same submission, like I said there are at least 3 and up to 5 notes that were sent in together. Doesn't mean that they were all mislabeled or that the notes are all 82a's but the possibility is there. Good thing I know where two of the other notes went, HEY, @Perfect-70 and @Bonezdogg check your P-82b's they might be mechanical errors. Hope they're not mechanical errors and that they are correct. But you should check them out tonight under the pale UV light. Good Luck,

So this was part of another journal entry I was writing but I got completely sidetracked in researching/writing this aspect of the entry and it just doesn't fit or stay within the theme of the original anymore. Viola! A second journal entry. In 1991 the newly Independent Ukraine was accepting bids to print its new currency the Hryvnia. CBNC (Canadian Bank Note Company), one of the bidders, is based in Ottawa. At the time Canada had a population of just over 27 million, 1 million of which were of Ukrainian descent, this gave CBNC a competitive edge in the bidding for the contract. In February of 1991, Shirley Arends of CBNC took a call from a Ukrainian-Canadian in Ottawa who had been asked by the Ukrainian Parliament in Kyiv to advise how the emerging nation could produce and circulate a new currency. CBNC then expressed interest in bidding for the contract, after which a delegation of Ukrainians arrived to discuss the contract further. The conference went well and after which each group hired a Canadian-Ukrainian law firm to represent themselves. Lawyers from the Toronto office of Fasken Martineau Davis represented the CBNC and the firm of Smith, Lyons, Torrance, Stevenson and Mayer represented the NBU (National Bank of Ukraine). The two parties signed a letter of intent in New York City in September but the deal was not publicized until November 14, 1991 when the contract was approved by the Supreme Council of Ukraine the Verkhovna Rada. The terms of the contract were that Ukraine would place a $5 million USD down payment in hard currency, not in Hryvnia, the CBNC was then to print the first series of Hryvnia banknotes after which the balance of the contract was to be paid. The contract was worth $35 million USD and the total number of bills to be printed was 1.5 billion in denominations from 1 to 100. This new contract was a coup for CBNC, the printing deal with Ukraine was instrumental in more than doubling the companies revenues from 91 to 92. CBNC also worked closely with the NBU in establishing the BPMW (Banknote Printing and Minting Works) of Ukraine. At one point the two entities were to co-own the facility giving CBNC a Kyiv based manufacturing facility from which they could tender bids and produce new currencies and other items for the newly emerging countries of the old Soviet Union. The concept/plan did not come to fruition, in fact TDLR (Thomas De La Rue) and ISBF (Imprimerie Speciale de Banque, "France") were printing Coupons at this same time, TDLR would go on to print some of the second series Hryvnia notes as well. (Maybe in part that's why the 50 & 100 denominations were not issued, or why CBNC did not print any additional notes for or with the NBU, there was a falling out of some kind?) Continued below images...... (First Series Notes, issued) (First Series Notes, not issued) Printing began in January of 1992 and the CBNC committed to a delivery date at the end of June but being in no rush to receive the newly printed notes (the first issue notes would not be released into circulation until 1996) and not wanting to spend the extra money on air freight the Ukrainian government decided to ship the notes via overseas freight. Once production was complete a freight ship, along with 8 officers of ALPHA (Ukrainian Secret Service (ex KGB) now called SBU) disguised as sailors, was sent from the port city of Ilyichevsk in the Black Sea (now Chornomorsk, due to a 2015 law requiring settlements established under Soviet/Communist control to be renamed). After a month's time the vessel arrived in Montreal, where it waited until the notes were removed from the CBNC vaults and loaded into shipping containers, the containers were then loaded onto railcars and departed CBNC headquarters in Ottawa by train. On September 13, 1992 the ship "Peter Aleynikov" was loaded with the 105 containers of banknotes and departed in route to the island of Malta where an additional 23 containers of cargo were loaded. On October 2, the cargo ship returns to Ukraine and docks in the port city of Nikolayev (now Mykolaiv) near the mouth of the Dnieper River in the Black Sea. The containers were then transferred to the general cargo ship "Slavutich - 17" (commissioned in 1991) and two other similar vessels. Once loaded the three ships navigated up the Dnieper River to Kyiv where the containers were offloaded and delivered to the NBU (National Bank of Ukraine) where they were held in underground vaults until their release on September 2, 1996. (Slavutich-17, present day) It's pretty amazing that you can find information and details like that, even a picture of the ship that transported the notes. Read enough books and do enough "searching", you'll be amazed at what you find.

Raw

Hmmm. I just got sniped, wonder who it could be..... I think I know who you are, gulp!

Yeah that's a little salty for the Cargill cheques. I like the fuel ration coupons, kinda takes the whole situation to a more personal level. For me. I think there is a good chance PMG would grade the coupons issued by the RBZ, not so sure they would grade ones issued by CALTEX or others (if there are others). What's the one that has AMBY on it, was that a RBZ issue as well? Looks like they cashed it. Dang it, can't stop looking at fuel coupons now.

In the latest issue of Coin World there was a short article about the 2020 Leonid Kadenyuk souvenir note https://www.coinworld.com/news/paper-money/national-bank-of-ukraine-issues-astronaut-souvenir-note

Read a little blurb about Zim last week in Coin World, speaking to the state of things there. https://www.coinworld.com/news/paper-money/zimbabwe-embraces-u-s-dollar-as-currency-shortage-continues Side note, I'm really loving that Coin World now has a Paper Money section. I think they added it at the start of 2020 and it seems to be expanding.

All good choices. When the time comes post some pics, front and back, of a couple of the notes. Always love to play the grade game and to speculate. Looks like 14 more slots, that's a pretty good increase, if you're quick enough I'm thinking best presented 2 years running. You'll probably need to mail them by February to make the deadline though.

Oh wow, yeah. I hadn't looked at the Bolivars but yeah. Hope we didn't lead them astray with our collecting interests. Maybe I should stop rocking the boat.?.?. Nah!

I was just curious. I'm pretty sure after I posted the question the seller pulled the note then relisted it as a "label error", for slightly more money of course.

Depends what comes up for sale a 63 note jump is huge, I'm sure there'll be something there for me.

Big jump this week, up to 1,903 probably going to be some notes hitting the market in the next week or two.

That's an interesting theme for a collection. I like it! Hopefully you start a Signature set here and post about them, would love to see them.

Very nice!

Yeah, start a Journal and/or post here. I always like reading about new things, especially in the world arena. SPAM?