September 2024 Greensheet Market Analysis: Expanded Pricing Coverage Coming Soon

I write this month's article just a few days after returning from the ANA World’s Fair of Money, the longest and largest numismatic show of the year. I had the pleasure of speaking with numerous U.S. and World paper money dealers, and the mood was generally upbeat for what has been a steady market so far this year. The foot traffic at the show had its busy and slow periods, but overall it seemed that retail buying was on the lighter side. There were a few important World paper money dealers who were absent from the WFOM who traditionally bring large inventories and are busy throughout the show. In speaking with the major auction firms, it seems that the flow of material being consigned is being squeezed a bit, as buyers outnumber sellers. Those buyers, however, are getting ever more sensitive—or picky—to both price and quality. As I wrote last month, notes with any sort of technical issue are selling for multiples less than a problem-free equivalent. At the time of writing, the only auction session that has been completed thus far in the WFOM paper money sale is Part 1 of the World paper sale. I observed the entire session, and while there were some highlights, I would classify it as medium strength. We will report the full results in next month’s issue.

The merger of CDN Publishing and Whitman Publishing that is now nine months old has presented new opportunities to expand our reach and the items that we cover. One of the long-standing gaps in our pricing for United States paper money has been in the modern Federal Reserve Notes. Commonly referred to as Green Seals, these are the same notes in circulation today, which began way back with the Series of 1928. While collected by both novice and advanced collectors, the sheer number of different notes, between the series, districts, and denominations, make completing a comprehensive price guide very daunting. For various unknown reasons, the specialist dealers and researchers in this field have not taken the time to produce and publish an updated reference work on this subject—perhaps this speaks to how difficult it really is. While we have long published the type note prices for the early series of 1928 and 1934 in these pages, and even listing the highest denominations individually by Friedberg number, we have not been able to dedicate the necessary resources to create a more complete pricing database. One of the primary challenges is that there is a major lack of real-world pricing data for these modern notes, primarily after the Series of 1950. Most notes are too of low value to appear at auction except in large group lots which are not helpful for devising pricing. In addition, most collectors are only looking for notes at the Superb Gem 67 and 68 certified grade levels, and prices realized for notes at these grade levels can be very volatile and inconsistent. This is particularly true if the note had a very low population at the time of sale; a high price will spur others to submit to grading, bumping up the population and then subsequent sales will almost always be lower, sometimes significantly so. Despite these hurdles, I am happy to report that we are now in the process of populating a complete pricing set of Small Size Federal Reserve Notes. By the time this issue is in mailboxes across the country, we will have an initial complete FRN price guide from $1 through $10,000, mostly going up to the series of the late 1980s. In many cases this also includes pricing for Star Replacement notes. The grades covered at the outset will be limited but as we collect greater amounts of data the pricing will expand. These prices will be accessible via our online price guide at www.greysheet.com, through our app, and on CDN Exchange for those dealer members who are members there. While there are way too many listings to provide in print individually, we will continue to list the Type notes here. Lastly, we are always looking to collaborate with experts on pricing, so if you are an advanced collector or dealer who is focused on Small Size FRNs we would love to hear from you. We hope subscribers find this a valuable resource!