Trimmed notes

News: Welcome to the Canadian Paper Money Forum.

I was wondering if anyone out there can give me there opinion on how bad you think are trimmed notes? It is true that you can no longer call the note original but to some degree I find this to be the least of any repairs a note may undertake. No glue or cleaning products are introduced to the paper. It's also not very noticeable and I don’t believe it should affect the grade since the design stays the same.

As far as buying, how much would you take off the value of a trimmed note?

There's a nice article about trimmed notes in the September 2006 CPMS newsletter.

..... in response to kid kc's inquiry....

I used to hunt for notes that were over-sized -- particularly 1937 and 1954 series -- and still take a small plastic ruler with me to shows. Occassionally I find an UNC note with huge borders -- as much as 1/4 longer than the dimensions listed in Charlton, but these notes often have bad centering. Call me crazy, but I personally like these notes.

I've NEVER done this, but if I trimmed an oversize note down to 6 inches long ( standard issue size ) it is technically a trimmed note, but still has proper dimensions, and consequently shouldn't have any decrease in value ( in theory ).

I've also found 1937 notes with huge borders that are 1/4 inch under size..... these notes I assume shrank when the cotton was wet, either in the printing process -- or by repeated washings over the years by various owners. Some short notes can have counting crease ghosts and other signs of being mucked with, and these I avoid.

Notes that have whisper thin borders have likely undergone repeated trimmings over the years. I avoid these a well because I don't like the look. Others however, don't mind, especially if it's a tough note.

As for the premium or discount that should be applied to an "original untrimmed" or "trimmed" note, well that depends on you -- and I don't believe there is a right or wrong answer. Buy what you like and pay what you can afford. If your only concerned about future resale value, then you'll have to be more selective.

Hope this helps.

The first thing I do when I buy a new note (and ESPECIALLY notes from eBay) is whip out my ruler and measure it - then after that I examine the note carefully to see if I agree with the grade and description I was given.

My "pet peeve" is that I have no reliable way of telling if a Dominion of Canada note has been trimmed, because I have no idea what the dimensions of each issue of Dominion notes should be.  There is nothing in Charlton's, and I have found nothing through searching the internet.

Does anyone know where we can find the measurements for Dominion notes?  All of the Dominion notes in my collection (I have 8 different issues, not including the shinplasters) are within more or less 2 millimetres of each other in length and width, but not knowing what the dimensions SHOULD be can be unnerving!  Aside from examining the amount of "white space" in the borders around the design, I also compare my Dominion notes to the pictures in Charlton's - but I would prefer a more objective method...  :-/

Unfortunately, using a ruler is useless as if you have enough of these Dominion notes and large chartered notes you will notice the frame sizes are all different, especially seen in the large bank of Montreal issues and also the Canadian Bank of Commerce 1917 issues as well as Dominion of Canada issues, eg 1911. The sizes of the frames sometimes vary by up to 6-7 mm. I have seen up to 5-6 different sizes of the frame for a given issue.

Thank you all for your very valuable information and advice.