Revenant

Yeah. The pick numbers did change each time. The 2 through 100 are P88 to P93. The 500 to 20000 are P94 to P99. I say of of this on my Zimbabwe set but, in hyperinflations and periods of high inflation when they are making these new notes they usually don't have the luxury of taking months or years to make new designs for everything and you see designs and design elements get reused a lot. I'm not a huge fan of the old holders for this reason either, but at lease they fixed the problem in later versions. This is one case of NGC & PMG upgrading a holder that was a VERY welcome upgrade.

Yeah. I tried entering it into the slot but didn't see the language I'm used to where it said it was in the admin queue, so, since I've been doing other posts about these sets here I thought I'd just make sure it was on the pile.

On the set / category: Banco Central de Venezuela, 2000-Date, P84-Date Slot ID: 10,000 Bolivares 2007-2017 Issue (formerly VENUNL10000a) P98 Why is the score assigned to P98a lower than the score assigned to VENUNL10000a (snipped below). Aren't they the same thing? P98a is 194 points in 66 EPQ and VENUNL10000a is 272 points in the same grade.

I got the bulk lot of six Venezuelan notes in the mail on Thursday, and, after letting them wait / sit a while I opened them today. This is such a funny group of notes because, the Bolivar Fuertes series has 6 designs where 6 portraits and 6 animals & nature scenes are paired and this same sequence of 6 note designs is repeated twice in the series in the same order. This group of 6 that I bought together has an odd-ball 2 Bolivar notes and not the 500 Bolivar note that would match up with all the other notes in the sequence from 1,000 to 20,000, so you get all 6 portraits and designs, but in kind of a weird way - with one odd-ball denom from much earlier in the series than the rest of them. Unlike a lot of the Zimbabwe notes I've been snapping up lately these were NOT graded recently. Many of those new Zimbabwe notes in my set have 807XXXX- cert numbers and some even have the latest gen labels. These Venezuelan notes have cert numbers ranging from 17409XX- to 25066XX- and they're all in the older gen PMG holders. And you can tell because they're in that older polymer that has a lower transmittance and has a kind of blue tint to it. I'm really wondering if the seller got these things graded in bulk years ago when the notes where new (circa 2015-2017) and they finally got tired of having them. Maybe these "Medley lot" sales have just been their way of (finally) clearing / dumping old inventory. Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining. I'm still thrilled to have gotten to fill out this set on the cheap, but it's still a little funny to think about what the "story" of these notes and this set might be. The other group of 5 notes I bought during the 4th of July sale arrived in the mail today. I won't open those until Monday or Tuesday probably.

Venezuela, 1940-Date, P31-Date, Complete https://notes.www.collectors-society.com/registry/notes/public_sets.aspx?CategoryID=1235&SetTypeID=9550 Slot ID: 2 Bolivares 2007-2016 Issue P88 Cert # 2506666-072 (The note I want to add) My problem in a nutshell is I want to add a P-88e but the slot is only set up to accept P-88a and P-88b.

Not quite the same as what you mean, but a large part of my 2nd dollar and 3rd dollar sets are bought off BankNoteWorld. They submitted large numbers of various denominations - many years ago I think, some more recently, and there are a bunch of notes in my sets that have the same invoice number (first 7 digits) as each other. I've always found it slightly amusing.

Hmmm... More drama and intrigue than I would expect in such an arena.

Thanks! If you're interested in the set yourself BankNoteWorld has 7 of the denominations in grades of 66 EPQ or 67 EPQ for about $14 each. They have a couple in 68 EPQ for $30-38, but I have a hard time justifying that with these.

Yeah... Not a lot of those graded really - just north of 1,400 total for Ukraine. So I can totally see you getting excited when one you need just pops up in a high grade and you can just buy it instead of taking a roll of the dice on a raw note. Something funny to think about but, the ~62 graded notes you have in your registry are over 4.3% of all the PMG graded Ukrainian notes in the world at the moment. You own more than 1 in every 25. Venezuela is doing slightly better at about 3,650. Zimbabwe looks a lot bigger at 13,100+, and in some ways it is, but over 6,000 of those are just the 100 Trillion note that everyone is obsessed with. If you've been making out with some deals lately like you alluded to in your prior post I doubt they're making all that much money off you though.

It's a pretty big deal over there on everything. My company is working on a 4th gen product. The first gen was the 101, followed by the 2nd Gen 201. The current products are the 300, 301 and 303 (different tech base than the 300 and 301, which the new product will replace). There's been talk that the 4th gen unit may be the "302" or something else specifically because a "401" would not sell in China.

Thanks! I agree they were the logical next step for me, but I'd also be interested in getting into some of the Argentina notes from the hyperinflation of the 1970s and 1980s in that country and that had been an alternative. USPS tracking is saying that all of the notes (in 2 packages) will arrive on Saturday. I'm really excited by that, but, if I follow what we've been doing to minimize virus risk, I won't get to open them until Tuesday.

The Venezuelan hyperinflation and the Bolivar / Bolivar Fuerte (“Strong Bolivar”) / Boliver Soberano (“Sovereign Bolivar”) Series got my attention last year while I was heavy into building and shopping my Zimbabwe set. I think they are cool looking notes, I love the animals on the back, and I love the fact that some of them have turtles on them, in addition to being hyperinflation notes / series. I didn’t start collecting them though because I was neck-deep in Zimbabwe, I didn’t have the budget to do both and I’ve long since decided that I’m happier doing 1 thing well than doing 5 in a very random, haphazard way. So, I stuck with Zimbabwe. But we are a year down the road now and my Zimbabwe set is a lot stronger and a lot more complete now. Many of the sub-sets in it and the collection overall is about 90% complete now and I am just hitting a point where making further progress is just going to keep getting harder and slower. So, it seems like a good time to consider branching out. Last week I noticed a seller I have bought from before was auctioning a set of 6 Bolivar Fuerte notes. There were 6 denominations that would make about a half-complete set of the 13 denominations in that series. The starting price was low, and I knew based on prior eBay sales that the auction might end at about $13-14 a note after shipping for a mix of 66 EPQ, 67 EPQ and 1 68 EPQ notes – not a bad deal. I knew that another dealer I have bought from before also had some of these already graded from PMG for good prices and that dealer had a 10% off sale going on this last weekend for the 4th. So, I decided to look at what they had and found that I could get 5 of the other 7 denominations from them in grades of 66 EPQ or 67 EPQ for $14 each - $12.60 after the discount / sale. After seeing that I was suddenly very excited! If I could win the auction Sunday night and bought the other 5 on sale, I’d have made an 11 of 13 denom set in just 2 transactions over a weekend for just $140-160. I did a little bit of looking and found that buying notes of similar grade one at a time from other dealers on eBay could potentially cost me $30-35 per note and / or would have required a fair bit more time and effort. I am pretty sure I would / will never get a chance to build this set easier or cheaper than this. So, I decided to just go for it! I did end up winning the auction for $81 after shipping. That puts the total cost of all 11 notes at $144.95 – or about $13.18 per note on average. It is hard for me to imagine building a graded set of gem / superb gem notes cheaper than that – and 7 of the 11 will be 67 EPQ or higher. One thing I very much like about this is that it is NOT another Zimbabwe set. The full Zimbabwe set is just so huge and building that has been such a commitment and such an undertaking – there are over 90 notes in it now. The Venezuelan set is comparatively small. Unless you start chasing varieties (which I am not going to do – for now) there are only 13 Fuerte notes and 11 Soberano notes so far (up to 2019) – 24 notes that’s it! That is smaller than the Zimbabwean 3rd dollar note set (27 notes) or the 2nd dollar bearer check series (28 notes) are individually. (Swiped the image below from an eBay merchant that is selling ungraded sets of the notes). This will be a nice chance to research some new people, a new country, and figure out why these animals are significant enough to the country to want to put them on a banknote. I am just getting these Bolivar Fuerte notes for now and I am not going to be venturing into the Bolivar Soberano notes until later. It really is scary just how much all of this “rhymes” historically with what happened in Zimbabwe just a few years prior… the first redenomination being 1000:1, the 2nd redenomination being bigger than the first, the changing of just the last letter of the ISO currency code every time… Scary. It is almost as if history repeats itself and people just do not learn. My wife accuses me of trying to be the “Hyperinflation King of the Registry.” I disagree with this assertion, but I would have no problem with it if it happened. 😊

Currently there's four categories in the Venezuela Registry. The Banco Central de Venezuela, 2000-Date, P-84-Date is the closest one to what I'd like to see but it includes P-84 through P-87, which are part of an earlier run of notes and I think they're still Bolivars (Bs, ISO Code VEB). The rest of the set (P-88 to P-100) are the Bolivar Fuertes series (BsF, ISO Code VEF) Would it be possible to remove the four slots for P-84 to P-87 from this set so it's just Bolivar Fuertes notes? Also, would it be possible to get a new, separate category for the Bolvar Soberano Series (BsS, ISO Code VES) - P-101 to P-111 (I think).

I just realized that this old thread was updated for the 2020 awards... When did this happen? I've been waiting for and looking for the big announcement. Did i miss something or did PMG go super low-key this year? Anyway... Glad to see it continue!

I hear ya. I do. My 4 year old had trouble understanding recently that my laptop - which was bought 3 months after his birth - did not have a touchscreen like his tablet and you have to use the keyboard and mouse. I am soon to be 34 years old and I have received my paycheck as a physical check precisely 1 time in the ~16 years of my working life. When I was on unemployment they mailed me a pre-paid debit card and they just loaded my benefits onto the card every 2 weeks.

I'm not sure what the situation is in the rest of the world , but the paper money at least isn't going away until they find a way to resolve the issue of the "unbanked." There's still a good chunk of the population that doesn't have a checking account or a credit card and they don't have easy access to a bank. The situation is or is going to get worse for some people because banks are increasingly going online and encouraging people to bank exclusively online - even cashing checks, when you actually get one, with an app on your phone. If you switch to requiring people to have electronic money which they are going to be required to monitor and access electronically you're then going to have to deal with the idea how internet connectivity / smart phones / data plans as a basic right or something people absolutely have to have in order to function within the society. We're not going paperless or cashless yet.

The P-2e is an interesting note (one of a few 1994 issues, along with the P-1d). It is a somewhat rarer variety than the P-2d, but when you look at the two, on the surface, they look pretty much the same. The difference between the P-2d and the P-2e (and the difference between the P-1c and the P-1d) is that the earlier issue uses the first version of the Zimbabwe bird watermark while the later issue uses the newer, second version of the Zimbabwe bird watermark that was used in later issues, including the Series 2 notes. Zimbabwe started rolling out the Series 2 notes in 1994 and 1995 (and retired the $2 denomination, replacing the P-1 note with a $2 coin). So, between their replacement mid-year of the prior issues with the old watermark and their subsequent replacement with completely new designs, these notes were not in print long. Pictured below for comparison is my P-2c, from 1983. I don't have a 1994 dated P-2d at this point. We'll see what the future holds there. The P-1c is fairly common and cheap, seemingly almost as common and inexpensive as the P-1b, and it’s just a watermark that separates it from the P-1d – which is one of the rarest and most desirable notes in any Zimbabwe note collection. I can say that with the P-1c and P-1d because I have seen P-1c notes come up for sale in 67 EPQ and sell for less than $30 in most cases 3 or 4 times now. I have hardly ever seen P-1d notes and they tend to go for more in the $120+ range. It’s harder to make this argument, for me, from what I’ve seen, with the P-2d and the P-2e because I’ve now seen two P-2e notes sell for $51 or less, but I have not yet seen a P-2d come up for sale. This makes it difficult in most cases to try to shop for a P-1d or a P-2e on the internet, in raw, ungraded condition, because sellers typically don’t include pictures where they’re holding the note up to a light to show off the watermark and it’s the watermark that makes literally all the difference - the dates and signatures are the same. From a registry perspective, these notes are interesting in that they are competition drivers that play an outsized role in making sets competitive (or not) in the 1st dollar category. And they seem to be more scarce on the market but their prices aren’t much higher in practice - I’m sure because there aren’t many 1st dollar collectors compared to 3rd dollar collectors and there aren’t all that many 1st dollar collectors that are crazy enough to build full variety sets or to try to hunt down the rare varieties instead of settling for the more common ones - most people probably would not care to pay extra for a P-1d and would rather just get a P-1b. The notes are nearly identical. A P-2c in 66 EPQ gets 45 points but a P-2e in the same grade gets you 357. I paid about $30 for the P-2c and paid about $51 for the P-2e. More, but not 7 times more. A P-1b gets 37 points in 66 EPQ but a P-1d gets 584 - which can make it hard to compete in the category if someone else has a P-1d and you don’t. The point values on these notes seems to be more reflective of their relative rarity and not necessarily their price - and we all know, per NGC/PMG that the scores are not based exclusively on price. But you also can’t draw many conclusions about relative scarceness or desirability because these things are rarely graded in general and the more common varieties are generally not worth enough after grading to justify the grading fees - so their relative numbers in the pop reports are not at all indicative of their relative commonness overall. This dynamic has made me keen to try to go for some of these rarer varieties when one comes up for sale and the seller is asking something close to a reasonable price. But the problem sometimes becomes that the seller is asking what I do not particularly feel is a reasonable price. And, when the thing sits unsold for months, it suggests to me that the others out there that buy these things also don’t feel like it’s all that good of an ask. But, when you’re dealing with something that only comes up for sale very infrequently - especially already graded in a very hard grade - it can be extremely hard to argue this point with the dealer or get them to come down off those asks. And then the things just sit in inventory for a year or two or three.

I found myself in a very similar place around the same time, not just because gold spiked, but because premiums for anything physical went insane. Like you, I've hit the notes hard. I was really thinking about branching out into Venezuelan Bolivars but when these 1st dollar notes started coming up I had to go for those instead. The first series is a great choice in that it isn't a 27-32 note series (unless you start getting into varieties) and they just have more character and history than the 2nd and 3rd dollars. Every new attempt to relaunch the currency tries to make callbacks in the designs to the 1st dollar series because they desperately want the populace to associate the new currencies with that brief period of glory. If you've been watching the recent eBay auctions on 1st dollar notes you've probably seen a lot of me slugging it out with one other bidder that has come onto the market for 1st dollar notes in a big way recently. Based on the fact that their feedback is over 3600 I suspect that they're a dealer or associated with one - they might be trying to pick these things up for resale, which would explain why they consistently give up once the price starts going past about $40-50. I also saw a 68 EPQ P-6 note get sold recently and then pop up later with another dealer that has a large stock of Zimbabwe notes - a dealer that I honestly hate just a little because he slaps insane prices on things, makes false or misleading statements about the pop reports in his listings and generally tries to over-hype and over-pump these notes because he wants people to pay $140 for a $35 note. I'm so excited to finally see the new designs released. But I am increasingly worried that the new series is going to spiral out of control and we're going to see another long series with a power climb of zeros. I suspect that the only thing that might stop or prevent that is the fact that the population has seen this movie already and they're likely to abandon the new ZWD the second it even looks like that's happening. The RBZ had better be on their best behavior. I think if you wait another month or so you'll probably start seeing PMG graded examples of the new $10 and $20 notes pop up with a couple of dealers. I'm waiting to see if the new notes / new series is going to cause a renewed wave of interest in the older stuff that I hope isn't going to drive prices back up. Thank you both! Reading that really is the best feeling.

I did a bit of reading last night and found out that the new $20 notes were announced at the same time as the $10 notes, but, where the $10 notes went into circulation in late May, the $20 notes weren't supposed to go into circulation until June. This time delay is probably why the $10 notes are starting to hit eBay but the $20s aren't - yet. I figure, assuming they aren't delayed, we'll see the $20s for sale to US collectors by early July. I said in my post about the new $10 notes that there seemed to be some clear attempts to call back to the original $10 notes from 1980 but it's even more clear with these new 20s While the design is clearly different, the color choices are very similar with greens, blues, and teals / aqua. Then you get to the art on the back. Both notes have an elephant - or the front half of an elephant - and Victoria Falls. Yes, they've clearly updated the art, but the inspiration drawn from the older note is very clear.

Yeah. That would have been funny. I wonder if #1,000 is even aware that they were #1,000.

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but, sometime just this week I think, the PMG Registry just got up to having 1,000 Ranked Users. There's 1,002 now.

Over the weekend I just started seeing these pop up for sale in eBay auctions and new sales / offerings popping up that offer these as part of a 3 note set with the 2 2019 issues, so I'm guessing these are freshly released and they're just now making it out to the dealers. So I guess I might get to see all the designs that were supposed to be released as part of the bond note series afterall. I was really expecting them to tack an extra 0 onto these if they released them and have $100 and $200 notes instead of $10 (and maybe, later, $20) notes. Even with the official exchange rate the government is trying to peg these at (25:1 with the US dollar) these new notes are worth less than half a US dollar - not much. If you use some of the exchange rates people have been using, these are worth less than a US nickel. They are pretty though, and in some ways this feels like another attempt to make a call back to the 1st dollar series. The Original $10 notes, the P-3, issued starting in 1980, was primarily red, like these notes. On another note, I got a P-99 $2 bond note - an actual 2016 Bond note and not a new 2019 banknote - last week. Last night I won an auction for a P-100 $5 bond note, so, once that comes in I'll have both the bond notes for real this time, and both the 2019 issues, and I'll just need to get this new 2020 note (and anything else they come up with this year, like a $20 note if they release it) to stay current on the new issues. Other than trying to keep up with the new issues and the new developments I'm still emphasizing going back and building up my 1st dollar set with new varieties as I can get them.

The funny thing with Zimbabwe is, while it's tempting (and the way I went, and the pick numbering is continuous) to treat the whole thing as a single continuum, the Zimbabwe sets span 4 currencies, each with its own currency code. So, thought of that way, I could see it being totally justified to refuse to do a set from 1980 to date, because, technically, legally, it's not all the same currency / monetary unit. You'd have a similar situation in Germany with the different Marks (gold mark, Papiermark, Rentenmark, Reichsmark, Saar Mark, Deutsche Mark) , or Venezuela now with the 3 or 4 different bolivars they've had now (Bolivar, Bolivar fuerte / "Strong Bolivar", Bolivar Soberano / "Sovereign Bolivar").

If you want it, and want it for you / to display your set the way you want and not to compete with others, I'd just make a signature set like I have with my Zimbabwe set. It's a little more work because you have to build out the set / slots on your own, but it lets you make and define the set the way you want.

For a P-1 to P-12 including varieties, If I remember right there used to be one. When they first added Zimbabwe sets to the registry set the category for first dollars had a slot for each variety. They later changed that and collapsed it down to 1-per-pick. I suspect the Why comes back to what NGC/PMG have said about wanting the "average" collector to be able to reach 100% completion in any set / category. Getting a 100% 1-per-pick set together is pretty straight forward. Trying to get a full variety set together is far more difficult and far more expensive. It's possible, for sure, I think. But it would be much harder and I think only the most hardcore of Zimbabwe collectors would even attempt it. As far as not having a 1980 to date set? I think that just comes down to how people collect (or don't collect) these notes. Most people will just get the Trillions. A smaller group will collect the full 3rd dollar or the full 2nd and 3rd dollar hyperinflation set. I think most of the people who collect those hyperinflation notes - the vast majority probably - either don't know about or don't care about the first dollar notes. Those people would not be interested in a 1980-Date set. I think the people like me that would make a 1980-Date set or a 1st Dollar set including varieties are a tiny tiny minority and PMG would rather just have the smaller series sets rather than make this monster category for 1 or 2 people to knock heads in. Just me guessing. Thank you! I'm very pleased with how that branch / arm of my set has come together and I think the 1st dollars are the star of that show now - even if I can't get above #3 in the category.