What Does "X" Represent In A Serial Number?

I have this $1 1935 Silver Certificate that has an "X" in the serial number. What does it represent and is it rare?

 

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I dont think it has any effect

 

I concur with my colleague.

 

Does it represent anything or is it just part of the serial number?

 

I think its just a serial number.

 

i thought the first letter represented the city it was printed? i have an X silver cert as well, and am not 100% on my answer, so am waiting to hear what it is...

edit:

i know in other years if you look at your dollars the first letter will match the city it was printed. for example i have 5 different ones with the starting letter "G", they are all Chicago.

 

On silver certs there is no District #. Here is a map of them so you can see and know them. They only go to 12 and 1=A, 2=B, 3=C, ect...

As for the X I think it's tied in with the serial # but we'll have to wait for another to reply.

 

http://www.federalreserve.gov/otherfrb.htm

 

This is for Federal reserve notes.

http://onedollarbill.org/decoding.html

I shouldn't even mention this as I am rather hazy, and can find no references. When I was taking a Fortran class n the 70s, there was a problem involving an algorithm for determining if a serial number belonged to a specific bill in hand. All I can remember is that the letter and the serial number allowed a bank to know if it was correct or not.........Does anyone else know anything about that?

 

yea, you are right. it was just an educated guess, based on how they do it now. like Boston is "A", New York is "B", Philly "C" and so on.

my X is like yours not in great condition, but i love the X start of the series.

 

<<I shouldn't even mention this as I am rather hazy, and can find no references. When I was taking a Fortran class n the 70s, there was a problem involving an algorithm for determining if a serial number belonged to a specific bill in hand. All I can remember is that the letter and the serial number allowed a bank to know if it was correct or not.........Does anyone else know anything about that?>>

Wow! Was that course out of date! I remember, vividly, the series 1953 USN's and SC's changing in that year. I almost turned a customer in for having counterfeit bills when he gave me two crisp notes aith sucessive serial numbers and the same check letter. I don't know when the $1 or FRN's changed.

With small size notes prior to 1953 (with the exception of type 1 NBN's), you could divide the
serial number by 6. A remainer of 1 would be check letter A or G.
2 would be B or H. 3 would be C or I. 4 D or J. 5 E or K. 0 F or L.



​

 

Actually, Fortran was still the dominant language in the 70s, at least in the business world. My favorite fun language was Forth Then C became big with DEC programming, and I didn't have a DEC PDP, so I waited until Linux came out, and finally had a usable C compiler. Took 28 hrs to compile the kernel on a 386 with 2 meg of memory. But I digress......Thanks for the algorithm. I am amazed that someone knew it!

Jim

 

You don't really mean the "City it was printed". All US notes are printed either in Washington, DC or Fort Worth, TX. The Fort Worth notes are identified by small FW on the note.

What you meant was "Federal Reserve District it was printed for".

On this note, the "X" is simply a series letter in the serial number.

 

Thanks for the info. I just need confirmation. On the earlier Canadian notes an "X" in the serial number is used the same way as a star on U.S. notes to indicate a replacement note.

 

Wow! Was that course out of date! I remember, vividly, the series 1953 USN's and SC's changing in that year. I almost turned a customer in for having counterfeit bills when he gave me two crisp notes aith sucessive serial numbers and the same check letter. I don't know when the $1 or FRN's changed.

With small size notes prior to 1953 (with the exception of type 1 NBN's), you could divide the
serial number by 6. A remainer of 1 would be check letter A or G.
2 would be B or H. 3 would be C or I. 4 D or J. 5 E or K. 0 F or L.
[/COLOR][/LEFT][/QUOTE]

Just curious if you know why they chose mod 6 to determine the check digit? I tend to use luhn algorithms because of their simplicity to check, I can't image many people can divide by 6 in their head...

 

An application of Occam's Razor supplies this answer: The only available choices for use in such a simple check digit algorithm are 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12. Of those, 6 provides the best balance between ease of use and range of choices. After all, how hard would it be to divide by 2 and then divide the result by 3 if a straight "divide by 6" was too brain taxing?

 

CT member Numbers has a site for tracking printages and serial ranges for FRNs, which has a lot of info about how blocks and SNs work:

Main page: uspapermoney.info

 

I have an X SC also, same series (1935 F) with the same sigs and also ends ser.# with the letter I ....

 

That's the page I was looking for! I must have spent two hours looking for it. Thanks for the links, Krispy!:thumb:

 

Mine is in the set that has the Motto/No Motto notes in it.