Quite frankly, I don't care about insert notes. I do not collect them and I don't believe they should be worth more than any other ordinary note becasue they are not distinguishable from any other non-insert note. There is absolutely no difference in the look, feel or paper composition of an insert note over an ordinary note. The only reason they are valuable, so to speak, is because of some process of how they were inserted into a brick that nobody outside of the printers and the BofC should really care about. At times, we cannot even say with 100% certainty that an insert note is in fact an insert note. That's my opinion, sorry if I offended anyone.
I believe collecting inserts is a short term fad. I would not be surprised if they were not listed in the next guide.Personally if i find an insert I will try to sell it , but i would never buy one as an investment or to collect.
I agree strongly with the comments made by actuary6 and rocken above and I speak from the perspective of someone who has seen many changes in the market and in collecting trends since 1971. The issue is very clear in my opinion. Thus, whereas "traditional" replacement notes (i.e., Asterisk notes and X-suffix notes) were prepared specifically with the intention of performing replacement duty,
modern insert notes are not (as far as we know) prepared specifically to perform replacement duty. Modern insert notes are nothing more than regular-issue notes that are taken "off the shelf" when a need for replacement notes arises (the only exception to this would be a distinctive prefix that was employed solely for insert purposes).
Let us look at a hypothetical example. Thus, EZL 8640111 (Cat. $100 in Unc-60) is asserted to be an insert note whereas EZL 7640111 (Cat. $25 in Unc-60) is asserted to be a regular-issue note although the two notes are, practically speaking, 100% indistinguishable from each other. I often wonder whether in 10 or 20 years time anyone will really care that EZL 8640111 was originally issued as an out-of-sequence note in an otherwise in-sequence brick whereas EZL 7640111 was issued as part of an in-sequence brick? Moreover, if new insert ranges continue to be identified at the current rate then in 10 or 20 years time the Charlton catalogue will be as thick as the Krause World Coin Catalogue!
What's really going on here, as I see it, is that regular-issue notes within certain specific serial number ranges (the so-called "insert ranges") are merely getting mixed up with notes from the non-insert ranges just like a deck of cards is shuffled at a casino. At the end of the day, all of the notes remain exactly the same but they just appear in a different order.
I'd be interested in knowing what the current state of thinking is on the above matters. I realize that my line of reasoning may go "against the grain" in some respects but I feel that these questions have to be asked, both for the good of the hobby in general, and particularly for the protection of new collectors who may be induced by high catalogue values to seek out insert notes and to pay large premiums above face value for them.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2008, 06:22:17 pm by Ottawa »
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" Buy the very best notes that you can afford and keep them for at least 10 years. " (Richard D. Lockwood, private communication, 1978).