Prefix and serial numbers are irrelevant.

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Why would the Bank of Canada bother to have the printers use prefixes and serial numbers  when both have become irrelevant.

BABN receives an order to deliver 50 million notes to the BoC. The BoC gets their order but it includes 6 prefixes which include AOA, B, C, D, E, F. None of these prefixes contain all of the numbers from 1 – 9,999,999. Some notes that got screwed up were supposedly destroyed and  replaced with whatever notes from one of the other prefixes. The BoC would have absolutely no idea what numbers from each prefix were actually delivered.

Since they have no idea what actual notes they received then why waste money on a costly irrelevant process. The journey notes already have printer identifying bp and fp#’s and the year of printing. Isn’t this enough information! 50 million $5 notes from BABN printed in 2001, done.

Any thoughts ?

Just one point, and certainly not a full argument for keeping serial numbers because I'm sure there are others, but serial numbers are actually a security feature in themselves.  Each note has a unique serial number, so if you find two notes with the same number, at least one is fake (except for the specially made lasting impressions sets).

They can also be used to get a close if not exact approximation (oxymoron aside) as to how many notes you have, assuming they're in sequence.

I you look at the AO series from BABN You would come up with approx 53,760,00 notes which is an odd number. I'm sure the BoC"s order would have been a number that was even like 50,000,000. That would leave 94,000 sheets or 3,760,000 notes missing from what was delivered within the 6 prefixes.

If you deduct the 300,000 known AOB inserts which have been found in ranges from 2.30 - 2.60 you still have 3,460,000 notes in question. These 3,460,000 or $17,300.000.00 would represent more than all the counterfeited money found in 2002. AO was only one order of one denomination so you can see there are hundreds of millions of dollars of notes notes each year not accounted for under the BoC's stated system.

The point I am trying to get to here is that the BoC HAS to know what inserts are been used. If they don't, then how could they ever figure out if any of the possible 3,460,000 fives coming back for destruction were supposed to be in circulation in the first place. If you don't know exactly what you put into the system how could you ever tally whats coming back.

Sounds like an accountants worst nightmare to me.

I asked the Bank about something similar, in fact the number of notes outstanding by series or prefix or whatever, and here was their response:

As for prefix, we cannot and do not track notes still outstanding by prefix, as unfit notes are regularly destroyed, and to have to record each serial number would simply be too arduous a task.

The first pic is the BoC label found on a block of 4 bricks directly from the BoC. Maybe we can gleen some information on the way the BoC tracks the notes they put out.

{http://gwfedora.tripod.com/label.jpg}

We sometimes talk about band marks on the notes we get in bricks. These 2  pics will give you an idea.

http://gwfedora.tripod.com/block.jpg

http://gwfedora.tripod.com/ends.jpg

All four of these bricks come from the same ream of 500 sheets.

http://gwfedora.tripod.com/numbers.jpg