How does one reconcile "Gem Unc Original" paper fabric with poor centering?

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I recently purchased several sequential $20 Devil's Face notes from an original brick of 100 notes which had the original $2000 wrapper band intact. All notes were essentially "Gem Unc-65 Original" as far as the paper fabric was concerned but all notes are significantly off-centre to the bottom as illustrated below. All notes were of the correct size mentioned in the Charlton catalogue and they have definitely not been trimmed.

How does one reconcile "perfect paper quality" with poor centering when trying to come up with a single descriptive grade? 

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G.Unc - "The note must have near perfect centering..."

C.Unc - "The note may be slightly off center..."

Unc - "The note may be noticeably off center..."

I think the note in question is somewhere in between slightly and noticeably off center (I have seen many notes, with nearly no bottom border at all).


Personally,  I would only subtract 1 or 2 points from the note because of the centering. In my opinion, the note would be a C.Unc-63 or 64. However, because the note has such great overall paper quality I am thinking closer to a C.Unc-64

I recently purchased several sequential $20 Devil's Face notes from an original brick of 100 notes which had the original $2000 wrapper band intact. All notes were essentially "Gem Unc-65 Original"

Out of curiosity, would another 100 Ch Unc to Gem Unc notes on the market cause
the price of this note to drop...any opinions?

Out of curiosity, would another 100 Ch Unc to Gem Unc notes on the market cause the price of this note to drop...any opinions?

Personally I do not think that this is a tough note to obtain in the first place and by adding another 100 to the mix can't be a healthy thing.....especially in such a high grade
Are there even a 100 people out there that would pay cat price? I don't think so IMO
ABYSS

I would never assess more than one demerit point for poor centering, however poor that may be.  Remember, when the centering gets so poor that a piece of another note is showing, it's an error note and begins to appeal to a completely different kind of collector.

Devil's Face notes are abundant in all grades, with very few exceptions.  We've talked about this time and again on this forum.  Hoards of Devil's Face notes, some being enormous, are responsible for this.  Putting a glut of anything on the market all at once will kill interest and lower prices.

Many thanks for your valued and useful responses. I sent several of my examples to BCS (whose opinions I greatly respect based on previous experience) and they assigned grades varying between UNC-62-Original and UNC-64-Original. Thus, 1971HemiCuda and mmars were right on the ball regarding the proper grading. However, when it comes to pricing, a poorly-centered UNC-64 obviously cannot compete with a well-centered UNC-64 so due allowance would have to be made in this area. Personally speaking, I abhor poorly centered notes but that may be a result of my early philatelic background where the centering of a postage stamp is of paramount concern and where some early stamps can sell for many multiples of catalogue values because of exceptionally wide and well-centered margins.

Regarding the comments about 100 notes possibly affecting market values I'm not convinced that 100 notes is really such a large quantity, unless of course all of the notes remained in one city (1000 notes would be a different story though). I understand that the original bundle has now been widely dispersed. It seems to me that 100 notes would soon be absorbed if 10 were placed in Vancouver, 10 in Edmonton, 10 in Calgary, 10 in Regina, 10 in Winnipeg, 10 in Toronto, etc., etc. Also, although hoards may have the effect of depressing prices in the short term, they often have the positive effect of making desirable notes more available to more collectors and this can only benefit the popularity of paper money collecting in the long term.

I personally do not think that 100 notes will make much of a difference but their will be other contributing factors to come that will be much more apparent in the future. It should be of no surprise to everyone that the vast majority of collectors are getting up in age. This is the same demographic of people that have always dominated the total collecting pool (or any other asset class) with a few important differences. 30-40 years ago when they dominated they were in their 30’s or so with a potential 30 to 40 years of collecting ahead of them. Today it would be hard to imagine another 30 to 40 years of collecting for individuals that are currently in their 60’s (I wish we could all live to be 100) Young collectors are about as scarce as a C.Unc solid notes and so over the next couple of decades we will start to see an increase in notes sold via individuals or estates that will ultimately overwhelm demand and will increasingly add significant downwards pressure on values specifically 1935, 1937 and Devil’s face notes since many from this age group have a particular liking to these series. Also keep in mind as to just how many notes and how large your collection might be after 30 to 40 years of collecting.  In addition to this people in their 60’s are currently accumulating debt at twice the rate of the average Canadian which will also have a negative affect as they try to fund the shortfall for their retirement needs/accounts. Overall they will make the change from being net buyers to net sellers. For those that are patient I believe collections will be had at a fraction of current costs and so in the grand scheme of things, 100 additional notes will have very little affect.

MG

When last I checked, Charlton and the CPMS were not using splintered grades like CU-62 or CU-64.  There is only Unc, Choice Unc, and Gem Unc, and the criteria for applying these grades is spelled out clearly in the catalogue.  Perfect note with poor centering = 1 demerit point = Choice Uncirculated.  Anyone wanting to know what criteria TPGs are using to derive their grades should correspond directly with the TPGs.  Maybe there's a TPG out there that will call a poorly centered note Gem Unc, I don't know.  We're already seeing the fallout of American-style grading invading the Canadian market.  The meaning of "Gem Unc" has become watered down and all anyone seems to care about these days is the number on the slab, not what the number means.  Catalogue prices are in freefall thanks to VFs being labelled as EFs and AUs.  But what did everyone expect would happen?  You can't just have the number of high grade notes go up five-fold in supply and expect prices to stay the same or rise.  Now you pretty much have to send your notes to PMG or PCGS just to have them keep their value.  Sure, you'll get the occasional 66 that will sell for boffo profits, but that only makes up for all the 62s and 64s that will net a selling price only a fraction as big.  Well, that is unless you successfully lobby to have grading standards watered down some more so that today's 62s are tomorrow's 66s.

You can't just have the number of high grade notes go up five-fold in supply and expect prices to stay the same or rise

I am inclined to agree more with this position- While there definitely may be a bump in interest I should expect there to be a dip in what most collectors would be willing to pay. Most people would agree that the avg/common Devils Face book value is somewhat inflated.  I may be wrong but I would suspect there is a much lower world demand of this note (as in previous years).  A lot of collectors I know take advantage of a soft markets and like to get a note when they know it won't sell for king's ransom.

For those that are patient I believe collections will be had at a fraction of current costs

Maybe I'm naive but I personally find this difficult to fathom.  Unless there is a chain of global events that puts any collection of rarities in the realm of unnecessary or redundant- I think there will always be new collectors who will take up the hobby- just as you may be sure there will be dying grandfathers/relatives with stashes of older $50/$100 & $1000 notes left in their safety deposit boxes.   I recall when I first started in this hobby the only women I would see were the wives of dealers.  That's changing and I think the changing demographic will keep the hobby fresh.   We will also be seeing more and more polymer- and that may entice more coin collector types and those just curious to see what the "old" paper money was like.  Some of these who will note how durable the new currency is- may come to believe it might be a good investment to keep some of the Journey notes- which then could lead to interest in the older series.  Just my 2 cents.

I think there will always be new collectors who will take up the hobby- just as you may be sure there will be dying grandfathers/relatives with stashes of older $50/$100 & $1000 notes left in their safety deposit boxes. 

In the past two months I have been approached by 2 different parties in regards to what I would consider large collections (100-125K). Although these individuals are not related, both of their fathers passed away and both fathers knew each other for years.  This is how I came about knowing the second party. After having completed a real estate transaction for one party we began to talk about other items and the topic of collectibles came up.  It was then I was told about a massive collection of notes that the father had passed down. After about a week of searching through notes and figuring out what the collection was worth, I believe
I estimated it at a conservative $100K.  Shocked by what I revealed to the new owner, I suggested getting a few opinions of which he did. A Toronto based company stated that they were willing to buy the collection for 92K, and another dealer offered 80K (I believe it to be low, IMO) Anways, the point is that this person who now had  about 100K of notes decided not to sell and persue the hobby that his father had committed years too. He is only 29, so he is off to a heck of a good start. Maybe if money was an issue he would have sold some or all of the collection, but it is nice to see that there are still people out there that are interested in the hobby. As for the other party, I think from what I have been told the collection will be purchased by this new collector.  I can only imagine what  aquiring 2 large collections with another 30-40 years of collecting ahead of him will a mass.....I guess I will never know since I will be long gone by then.....
BTW what I found very interesting was that not one single note in either of these collections was ever TPG, they were all raw. As for grading, IMO the one persons notes were dead on .....
FRIEDSQUID