Fractional Currency Specimen vs Note 1 1

[LakeAnna]

So very new on getting some graded currency and recently acquired a 25 Cents First Issue Fractional Currency Fr#1282spnmf Narrow Margins Specimen. It took some asking around to understand why the front and back were two different notes. It was explained that these were used either as drafts in production or at banks as examples for anti counterfeiting. Cool first mystery solved for me. :-) 

Now how are specimens like this valued vs the actual notes? The one I have is graded 63 choice uncirculated. I see in Greysheet the FR# listed. Is that what you use as an estimate? I also have a Whitman Guidebook on currency 8th edition 2022 that list each face of the specimen individually. Would that be what you would use? 

Unlike my NGC coins there typically is a link to the estimated value. I did not find that on these, or an other actual note. I'm confused. 

[Fenntucky Mike]

On 10/11/2024 at 9:15 AM, LakeAnna said:

Now how are specimens like this valued vs the actual notes? The one I have is graded 63 choice uncirculated. I see in Greysheet the FR# listed. Is that what you use as an estimate? I also have a Whitman Guidebook on currency 8th edition 2022 that list each face of the specimen individually. Would that be what you would use? 

Welcome to the forum.

Greysheet is generally a good reference for U.S. note pricing, I would definitely use that over the Whitman Guidebook as Greysheet is updated regularly while the Guidebook is only updated once a year at best. Your best bet to determine pricing is to do some legwork on your own and look at auction sites like Heritage Auctions, Stack's Bowers, Great Collections, etc. and check out their auction archives for recently sold examples that are an exact match to your notes. 

The value of specimens vs actual notes depends, in some series actual notes will be worth more while with others the specimens bring in higher prices. Generally specimens bring higher prices but this is something that you could research while checking auction prices and verify.

On 10/11/2024 at 9:15 AM, LakeAnna said:

Unlike my NGC coins there typically is a link to the estimated value. I did not find that on these, or an other actual note. I'm confused. 

The PMG website is not as developed as NGC, it will not have all of the features of the NGC webpages.