2012: A Dry Year for New Journey Prefixes?

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I haven't posted much until recently, but based on what I discovered since my return to these forums, it seems as if 2012 has been a pretty dry year for new prefixes for the surviving Journey notes.  I am not certain when the last new $10 prefix was first reported to the SNDB or what prefix it was; and there were only 6 new $5 prefixes printed in 2011 with the M/C signatures.  I have hardly seen any brand new $10 bills in my region this year (no new $10's were printed in 3 years at this point), and if I have seen anything different in my location, there may have been only 2 new prefixes for my region this year and in very small ranges, and 2013 - the beginning of the year being the start of a dry period for new prefixes in my region - is just days away; and I have seen at least 3 different $5 prefixes in my region in 2012 - HPZ, HPD and HAD - all printed in 2010.

Makes me wonder if the banks in my region devoted the entire 2012 to heavy recycling of the current $10 bills already in circulation and they probably didn't order any new $10 bills in an effort to accumulate savings for when the new Polymer $10's come out?  I can see that happening, because if it costs more to produce a single Polymer $10 bill, chances are the cost to order them will be higher, thus prompting the need to cease or very rarely ordering new Journey $10s in 2012 in preparation for the new bills coming out in some months time.

But does anybody agree that 2012 has been a dry year for new Journey prefixes?

It seems I've been getting more of the same $5 and $10s for sure. I have yet to see a M/C $5 for all of 2012, having seen one in 2011.

I always get new $10s from HSBC and Scotia cash machines, but nothing new, just the same old BF* prefixes.

I agree. I saw some circulated HAG, and HAH a couple months and hoped they would show up at the banks but haven't seen any more at all.

Is it because there is a stockpile of printed notes from prior years or is it because there is much recycling? Perhaps both!

I have run into crisp notes from the APR series - 48 continuous numbers  (believe it is 2008) not too long ago.

With the $10 note, it's hard to say what's going on, but for the $5 and $20 notes, large volumes of new notes were printed up ahead of time and released gradually.  Five dollar notes in the range HAA-HAD came out quickly along with traces of HAE-HAL, while HPA-HPZ lingered but are now being seen more frequently.  The backwards release of prefixes allowed us to speculate on what was coming, so we've known about many prefixes long before they became commonplace.  There's still lots of time for Macklem-Carney fives to make a greater appearance.

Ten dollar notes have been printed exclusively by BAI for years, and this company is not known for printing up the large volumes of notes that CBN has done with the $5s and $20s.