Format for star note serials

May 1977 through November 1984

In some of the older series, so many runs of star notes were produced--and so many of these were partial runs, with many gaps in their serial number ranges--that I have adopted an abbreviated format for their listings.

The most important fact to remember is that, no matter whether a full run or a partial run of star notes was printed, a full standard run worth of serial numbers was always set aside for it. Thus, whenever a partial run was produced, some serial numbers were skipped over entirely. These "missing" numbers were not used in the next run; they were simply omitted from the series.

Therefore, since a standard print run of stars was 20,000 sheets at the time, each run of star notes was allowed a range of 640,000 serial numbers (since there are 32 notes to the printed sheet). And each such range always began and ended at multiples of 640,000, regardless of how many notes had been printed in previous runs. The following table gives the resulting ranges of serial numbers which correspond to each run number:

RunSerial NumbersRun Serial NumbersRun Serial Numbers
100000001 - 0064000016 09600001 - 1024000031 19200001 - 19840000
200640001 - 012800001710240001 - 10880000 3219840001 - 20480000
301280001 - 019200001810880001 - 11520000 3320480001 - 21120000
401920001 - 025600001911520001 - 12160000 3421120001 - 21760000
502560001 - 032000002012160001 - 12800000 3521760001 - 22400000
603200001 - 038400002112800001 - 13440000 3622400001 - 23040000
703840001 - 044800002213440001 - 14080000 3723040001 - 23680000
804480001 - 051200002314080001 - 14720000 3823680001 - 24320000
905120001 - 057600002414720001 - 15360000 3924320001 - 24960000
1005760001 - 064000002515360001 - 16000000 4024960001 - 25600000
1106400001 - 070400002616000001 - 16640000 4125600001 - 26240000
1207040001 - 076800002716640001 - 17280000 4226240001 - 26880000
1307680001 - 083200002817280001 - 17920000 4326880001 - 27520000
1408320001 - 089600002917920001 - 18560000 4427520001 - 28160000
1508960001 - 096000003018560001 - 19200000 4528160001 - 28800000

The numbering can continue in this way through as many as 156 runs before running out of serial numbers, but no more than 45 runs of star notes were needed for any district, denomination, and series listed in the data on these pages.

In the monthly production tables, I have listed each run of star notes by its district and its run number. Thus, for example, a listing of "B#12" indicates printing of notes with serial numbers B 070 40001 * through B 076 80000 *.

As mentioned above, partial runs of star notes were often printed, and in this case certain serial numbers were skipped. In such cases, the numbering equipment would be set up just as for a standard 20,000-sheet run of star notes, but numbering would be stopped before all 20,000 sheets had been printed. Because of the way the numbers are arranged on the sheets within a run, this process resulted in many small gaps in the serial numbers used on these partial runs. In particular, each group of 20,000 serial numbers within the run would be missing an amount of numbers equal to the amount of sheets omitted from the run; and the numbers actually used would be the upper range of each group of 20,000. (The example below should make this clearer.)

Partial runs of this type have been indicated in the monthly tables by noting the number of sheets actually printed, such as "[8000]". Thus, for example, a listing of "B#12[8000]" indicates that the following notes were (and were not) printed:

PositionSerials NOT PrintedSerials Printed
A1B 070 40001 * - B 070 52000 * B 070 52001 * - B 070 60000 *
B1B 070 60001 * - B 070 72000 *B 070 72001 * - B 070 80000 *
C1B 070 80001 * - B 070 92000 *B 070 92001 * - B 071 00000 *
D1B 071 00001 * - B 071 12000 *B 071 12001 * - B 071 20000 *
E1B 071 20001 * - B 071 32000 *B 071 32001 * - B 071 40000 *
F1B 071 40001 * - B 071 52000 *B 071 52001 * - B 071 60000 *
G1B 071 60001 * - B 071 72000 *B 071 72001 * - B 071 80000 *
H1B 071 80001 * - B 071 92000 *B 071 92001 * - B 072 00000 *
A2B 072 00001 * - B 072 12000 *B 072 12001 * - B 072 20000 *
B2B 072 20001 * - B 072 32000 *B 072 32001 * - B 072 40000 *
C2B 072 40001 * - B 072 52000 *B 072 52001 * - B 072 60000 *
D2B 072 60001 * - B 072 72000 *B 072 72001 * - B 072 80000 *
E2B 072 80001 * - B 072 92000 *B 072 92001 * - B 073 00000 *
F2B 073 00001 * - B 073 12000 *B 073 12001 * - B 073 20000 *
G2B 073 20001 * - B 073 32000 *B 073 32001 * - B 073 40000 *
H2B 073 40001 * - B 073 52000 *B 073 52001 * - B 073 60000 *
A3B 073 60001 * - B 073 72000 *B 073 72001 * - B 073 80000 *
B3B 073 80001 * - B 073 92000 *B 073 92001 * - B 074 00000 *
C3B 074 00001 * - B 074 12000 *B 074 12001 * - B 074 20000 *
D3B 074 20001 * - B 074 32000 *B 074 32001 * - B 074 40000 *
E3B 074 40001 * - B 074 52000 *B 074 52001 * - B 074 60000 *
F3B 074 60001 * - B 074 72000 *B 074 72001 * - B 074 80000 *
G3B 074 80001 * - B 074 92000 *B 074 92001 * - B 075 00000 *
H3B 075 00001 * - B 075 12000 *B 075 12001 * - B 075 20000 *
A4B 075 20001 * - B 075 32000 *B 075 32001 * - B 075 40000 *
B4B 075 40001 * - B 075 52000 *B 075 52001 * - B 075 60000 *
C4B 075 60001 * - B 075 72000 *B 075 72001 * - B 075 80000 *
D4B 075 80001 * - B 075 92000 *B 075 92001 * - B 076 00000 *
E4B 076 00001 * - B 076 12000 *B 076 12001 * - B 076 20000 *
F4B 076 20001 * - B 076 32000 *B 076 32001 * - B 076 40000 *
G4B 076 40001 * - B 076 52000 *B 076 52001 * - B 076 60000 *
H4B 076 60001 * - B 076 72000 *B 076 72001 * - B 076 80000 *

Note that, within each position, the last 8000 serial numbers are the ones used, because the numbering machines count downward within each run. If the partial run had been 4000 sheets, the serial numbers used for position A1 would have been B 070 56001 * through B 070 60000 *, and likewise for the other positions. Similarly, if the partial run had been 16,000 sheets, position A1 would have used serials B 070 44001 * through B 070 60000 *. In general, a run of N sheets will always use the last N of each 20,000 serial numbers in the run's assigned range.

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