Missing Circles revisited

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I rec'd some FEE $10's today in the 4.3 M range and was surprised to see the missing circle still evident. I realize this was a hot topic some time ago, but what ever happened to the interest in these notes? Were there any authoritative conclusions reached as to them being recognized as a "variety". Were any conclusions reached as to the prefix range of notes without the circle and whether the printing plate was or ever will be altered?

I don't know the answer to the first part of your post, but I do know missing circle notes are still being produced for I have them in FEF, H, J, K, L, and M, as well as the earlier issues. I just haven't seen enough FENs to find a missing circle in that issue.
      JWS    

I have to find a FEN  2188607 missing circle is

Hi,

I found FEL9077524 VF/EF with the missing circle today in Toronto M5J 2X2.  I think it's a keeper.

Front Plate: 19, Back Plate: 27
Dean.

If I remember correctly, the "missing circle" was first reported on this forum before the wider collecting community was aware of it.  I asked my local dealer about missing circle notes recently and he had never heard of them.

It appears that either the wider collecting community is either not aware that they even exist, or if they are, are not sufficiently interested in them for them to be any more than a regular $10 note.

Have any articles about them appeared in any numismatic publications, like the CCN?

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I agree with Hudsonab.  It's not a cutting error in the sense there always is some variation in the position of the stack of sheets of notes in the cutting machine.
 
There is a "normal" position, but there is a few mm tolerance on both sides of this normal (or average) position, so the cut must have be made at about 2 mm from the average position to see the missing circle (and even a part of a second missing circle if the cut is about 3 mm at left from the average position, which makes an interesting sub-variety).  
It's a unusual variety: constant because it is printed on each sheet, but inconstant because it depends of exactly where the cut is made in the last step of making notes.

I hope that it will eventually become a recognized variety .

It would be possible to make a list of notes with missing circles.  To put something in an high/low list, here the numbers of notes with 2 missing circles I have:  FEB5401786, FEB7925613,  FEB9031832-833 and FED8261552.  Here a scan of the 2 missing circle variety:

The missing circles, from what I can understand, are found on the notes that are on the left edge of a sheet, beginning around the FEE0400000 point and continuing right up until where they currently are stopped (FEN). So, theoretically, about 20-25% of all notes in circulation have the potential to be missing circle notes. The actual number out there is considerably less because if the notes are cut properly, or too far in the other direction, you'll never see the missing circles. You will only see the missing circles on the notes that are cut too far to the left so that they are exposed.

This is not an error by any stretch of the imagination. I am resolved to go with the idea that it is an alignment aid of some kind. This variety is observed on a vast number of banknotes. It is simply an element of the uncut sheet that is a little too close to the cutting region and is regularly exposed.

Is this theory have got any confirmation?
I don't believe that is a cutting guide...On the border of the uncut sheets, there is small marks which play this role (we see these marks on the big cutting error I reported elsewhere in a Birds 20$ note).

If the cutting guide theory was true, why we see these missing circles on the prefixes FEB up to FEN (but most of them are found in FEB to FED prefixes).  On earlier notes (FDT-FEB), even on the leftmost cut notes, we see the small circle inside the larger one. I don't believe that these notes are more badly cut on average than the FEB and on notes.  Why they should have suddenly needed a missing circle as a guide to trim the edges of the stack of notes?  Anyway,  these missing circles as guide were not a very good method, if they were intended to.

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I remember seeing a post here by JWS that mmtioned missing circle notes are found in the BOTTOM half of the bricks, NOT the top half.

May be JWS can correct me if I am wrong...  

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