karlpc wrote: ↑Thu Oct 19, 2023 7:01 am
Thank you for your insights and opinions!
You are most welcome.
I just want to add some context to some of the statements I made above (in case you haven't followed what happened with the Journey 2001 series). A short time after the $10 were released, crooks were photocopying them so they became a problem for law enforcement. Plans to upgrade were in the works about 2 years after they started (around 2002). At least there was a buzz in the collector community that something was about to give & then the $5.00 appeared.
Note, this was also the first time that the BoC printers imprinted dates on their notes. And with the internet and the Canadian Paper Money Forum, it was easy to follow the release of new prefixes closely. I'll give you the Reader's Digest version:
TENS:
The
2000 FDY was a short prefix & many collectors wanted one of these.
In 2002, we knew the Sr. Deputy governor changed & by 2003 saw very few
2003 BEK with the new Jenkins Dodge signature, so everyone was on the look out for these. 2003 BEM & BEN prefixes seemed to be full but the
BEL & BEP prefixes were rarely found.
In 2004, we saw the 2004 Jenkins Dodge BER but very rarely saw any
2003 BER. By late 2004, a few lucky collectors found BEL & some 2003 BER and UNC BEP's were found but not many. Every collector I knew was in the hunt for the above prefixes while the 2004 BER appeared (but it was a low # 1.4M change-over) & the BES prefix came out as a full run. The
BET was the last (& short 0.92M) prefix and sought after too.
FIVES:
Nothing really exciting occurred with the FIVES
Most of us obsessed over finding the "Lost $10 prefixes" which were the BEL & BEP though it soon became apparent that the BEL was much scarcer than the BEP. Notable tough notes were also the 2003 BER with 7.2M (but much scarcer than the 2004 (1.4M) BER). The 2003 BEK was mostly insert replacements so regular BEK notes (that fell outside the replacement ranges) were tougher.
I elaborated with these Journey change-overs b/c the numbers issued don't always tell the full story of what's scarce/tough & what is not.