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Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2001 07:19:28 -0800 (PST)
From: MPCgram <mpcgram@yahoo.com>
Subject: MPC Gram 242
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====================================================  
                      MPC Gram
====================================================  
  Covering the Entire World of Military Numismatics
----------------------------------------------------
 Series 002-Number 242        Thurski 1 February 2001

            New Research on Victory Notes

by Larry "Ski" Smulczenski

  During the week between Christmas and New Years, I
got a phone call from Fred asking what I knew about
plate letters on the Philippine Victory notes. John
Boise had called Fred asking him some technical
questions about the printing of Victory notes. Fred
was able to answer some, for others he wanted
consultation.
  The Philippine Victory notes have a small capital
letter followed by a small number in the lower right
corner of the note. The letter denotes the position on
the original sheet where the note was printed, i.e.
"A" in the upper left position, "B" in the second
position on the left etc. This was explained in Neil
Shafer's book Guidebook of Philippine Paper Money
which told us that there were 10 Victory notes printed
on a sheet in a two across by five down format. This
means that the note in the bottom right corner of the
sheet would have the letter "J.” You can draw yourself
a picture if you want-- ABCDE on the left and F at the
top of the second column next to the A followed by the
GHI and J. 

A    F
B    G
C    H
D    I
E    J

  The little number after the letter is the plate
number of the master plate that produced the
individual plates on the 10 note printing plate. 
Fred's inquiry triggered something in the deep dark
recesses of my mind. I remembered winning an auction
lot when I was in the Philippines that contained about
a hundred well circulated 20 peso Victory notes. I
bought it because it had some replacements buried
among the notes. 
  I pulled the replacements out, sold them and stuck
the remaining notes in a box. That was years ago, so I
searched my mind trying to figure out where those
notes were. This is a common occurrence in our house. 

  I usually put something in a special spot, so it
doesn't get lost then I spend hours looking for that
spot when I want to retrieve that item. This was
especially challenging since years had passed since I
last saw these notes. Lo and behold, I found them in a
box in a closet after a couple of hours searching.
  A quick check of the letters disclosed that there
were examples of all letters, A through J. That night,
I sat down and separated the notes into piles by the
plate position letter. I had between seven and 13
notes in each pile. I then took each pile and arranged
the plate numbers in ascending order. I found that for
each position letter the highest plate number was
between 10 and 13. 
  After that I looked at the serial numbers to see if
there was any pattern. To say that the results were
less than encouraging would be a gross
overstatement--they bounced all over the place. With
the relatively small number of notes that we had in
our sample, we did not have each plate number for each
position letter, but still it seemed logical to
conclude that there was 13 plates used with the 20
Peso Victory note and each position letter could be
found with all 13 plate numbers. The sample of serial
number to plate number however was way too small and
the data needs to be seriously expanded before any
real conclusions can be made. Personally, I doubt that
we will find any relationship between the plate number
and the serial number. 
  I continued to look at the pile of notes. I
separated the notes with the position letter A and
laid them out on the table, a total of 15 notes with
plate numbers 1 through 5 and 7 through 11, missing
only the 6, 12 and 13 if my hypothesis mentioned above
holds true. I looked at all combinations of the notes,
rearranging them sequentially so the serial numbers
were in ascending order. I still saw nothing.
  Frustrated, I gathered them up and sat back holding
the small pile of position letter A's in my hand and
began leafing through them so the serial numbers "ran"
before my eyes. What secret were these notes hiding?
  As I continued to flip through these notes,
something did catch my eye. Every note, all 15 of
them, had a "0" as the fifth digit from the left, i.e.
Fxxxx0xxx. I sat up straight in my chair and stumbled
over myself as I reached for the remaining pile of
notes. I separated the B plate position notes from the
pile and flipped through them. A "1" appeared in that
fifth position from the left, Fxxxx1xxx. The same was
true for the rest of the pile, C had a "2," D had a
"3," E had a "4," right through to the J which had a
"9" in that position. I sat back to think about it.
What that had to be telling us was that the sheets of
10 notes were numbered 1000 sheets at a time. The A
position had to start the numbering with F00000001,
position B numbered F00001001, position C numbered
F00002001 etc. on the first sheet. The second sheet
would have a 2 as the last digit of the serial number.
This would continue right through sheet 999. What
happens with sheet 1000 is a question left unresolved.
 If the Bureau continued to number past 999 that "0"
in the fifth position of the serial number of the A
note would have to change to a "1." That serial
numbers were already printed in the B position. The
same would be true for all the rest of the plate
positions, that would have to advance by one number.
By numbering 1000 sheets at a time, the second run
simply would step the position 4 digit to a "1" and
start with serial number F00010001 in the A position.
I therefore conclude that the first four digits of the
serial number plus one will tell you what run the
sheet of notes was numbered on. I ran to get my
collection of Philippine Victory notes and any
duplicates I could find. 
  I was disappointed when I found some anomalies, but
a closer examination revealed that those notes that
did n ot meet the proposed theory were either
replacements or were notes with scarcer signature
combinations. All the notes that I had worked with
were of the common Osmena-Hernandez signature
combination. My proposed theory works for all values
of Victory notes and Central Bank overprints on
Victory notes. 
So we must establish the following two ground rules. 
1. The Victory/Central Bank Overprint notes have a
Osmena- Hernandez signature combination and 
2. The note is not a replacement. 
Fred believes that the replacements were numbered in
runs of 500 sheets. We checked all the notes we could
find at FUN, and the above holds true but our sample
size of replacements and the scarcer Osmena-Guevara or
Roxas-Guevara signature combinations are very small.
  This information is still very preliminary. Many
questions still need to be answered. You have seen a
few of the them like 
  What happens on the 1000th sheet? Does anyone have a
note that ends in three zeros? 
Can we get more replacement and scarce signature
serial numbers so we can look at those numbering
sequences? 
  Is there an association between SN and plate
position? 
How many plates were used on the 1 peso, 2 peso, 5
peso etc. 
  We need your inputs. Send us information on your
Victory or Central Bank overprint Victory notes;
include denomination, serial number, position letter
and plate number, and signature combination. 
Send your inputs to skifla@prodigy.net or the Gram

           Follow up on Camp Reynolds

by Fred Schwan

  Yesterday after finishing the marathon discussion of
Camp Reynolds POW chits, I made a few, well two, more
discovereis.
  First, the booklet contained 1 cent chits too, but I
do not have any. The other item is more interesting.
  As you know, the bottom chit of a strip has a
straight edge. This is a well-known but minor variety.
In studying these chits I found that I have some of
these from the bottom of a strip. In the margin below
the counter on the right is the denomination in small
type. Obviously, this additional denomination
facilitated use of full booklets.
  I could not remember ever seeing this variety so I
called chithead Ski and asked him. He did not recall
seeing this variety, but checked his collection. There
he found some chits with the "extra" denomination. Not
surprisingly, his was also an Allison chit. Therefore
we can tentatively conclude that this was an Allison
"enhancement."
====================================================
                        Editorial
----------------------------------------------------
  Based upon yesterday’s gram, today’s ski report, and
Dennis Earl's letter below, there seems to be a theme
emerging about over “40” collectors losing and finding
things! Also, after reading the ski report, I could
not help thinking that Doug Bell will love this new
analysis. For 1 peso notes alone, he will need 130
pieces (13 plates x 10 positions)!!
===================================================
                       Mail Call
---------------------------------------------------
Dear Gram,
Well, as usual, I enjoyed reading the "GRAM"!! You
mentioned that you were starting to collect the
"British Armed Forces Special Voucher," 1 pound,
Second Series Notes.(Watermarked variety with metal
thread) I also understand that you are trying to
obtain prefix numbers AA over 1 through AA over 10 and
presently you have the following: AA over 5 / AA over
7/ AA over 8.
 Although it is my only one, I would be willing to
trade you my "British Armed Forces Special Voucher," 1
Pound, Second Series Note, with the Watermark & metal
thread. The prefix number is AA over 9 and the rest of
the serial number is: 956959. Are you interested?? If
so, I will even scan it for you to see and then, if
you still want it (It is, of course, in "CU"
condition!) I will then trade with you!!
 Again, if you are interested in it, please tell me
what World Coins, World Paper money, and Tokens of any
kind that you have and would be willing to collect!!
My interests are as follows: World Coin Sets, German
Notgeld Paper money, Philippine Guerrilla Money,
Chinese Gold Unit Notes, JIM Notes, Inflationary Money
of Yugoslavia (1993), Croatia-Serbian (1993), and
Hungary (1946), Canadian Tire Notes, Russian Rouble of
the Czar, Bi-metallic Coins, Old Coins & Notes of
Prussia, Empire of Germany, Third Reich of Germany,
Coins of Weimar Republic of Germany, and Nazi
Occupation Coins of Belgium, World Coins (I have 410
different countries out of 1,900 coins), Wooden
Nickels, Tokens (The following categories: Arcade,
Transportation, Car Wash, Food, "Good Fors,"
Children's Play money, Casino Chips, Medals &
Medallions of Mardi Gra, Famous Sites, Famous People,
States & Cities, Sun Slammers, Sales Tax, State Tax,
Coat Tokens, Civil War and Public Bathroom Tokens),
Maui Trade Dollars & Hawaiian Souvenir Metals, World
Sunken Treasure Notes & Coins, and any World War II
Coins & Notes with good histories!!
  Before I scare you off, I must explain why I collect
so many things!! To make it short and brief....after
serving our country with 22 years in the Navy, I was
Medically Retired.
  Well, I started to collect World Coins when I first
went into the Navy in 1967 but, I then stopped because
my job was abit stressful. I now collect all the above
mentioned items just to keep my mind busy or I will
again start thinking about sui....well, you know! 
  Sorry for me writing a major motion picture!! I am
very low on the following of the above items:
Transportation Tokens, Tax tokens, German Notgeld
Paper money, Philippine Guerilla money, some Jim
Notes, Civil War tokens, Chinese Gold Unit Notes,
Bi-metallic Coins, and Maui Trade Dollars!! (I also DO
NOT HAVE the U.S.Token Catalogs, World Paper money
Catalogs, and I DO have the 1999 Edition of the
"Krause World coin Catalog" and the 19th Century
"Krause World Coin Catalog," too!!
Please write soon!
 
John T. B.

Dear Gram,
 I too was searching through an accumulation of papers
and envelopes and came up with a booklet from WW1. The
front cover has a serial number, a smiling "Doughboy"
with his hat, a $1.00 denomination and "SMILAGE BOOK"
in an arc across the middle of the cover. It states
that this was printed for the WAR DEPARTMENT by the
GLOBE TICKET CO. in Pliladelphia, PA and that it was
for the "Military Entertainment Service"

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