Low serial

(Spanish: Serial bajo)

A banknote that has a serial number near to the beginning of the serie (view High serial for the reverse case). It's necessary to know the serial interval (or its estimated), because the serie can start in any number, nonetheless generally starts at 1.

These pieces often has a higher numismatic value to others at the same condition, based to the difficulty to get it, and the value is higher as the serie is near to the start.

Currently there are no conditions defined yet to check whether a serie is low or not, however there are some guidelines commonly known:

Serial number in the first 2000 pieces

From the start of the serie, a piece is low serial when the serial number is in the first 2000 (some states 1000) pieces.

This example is a piece identified as bbcv50bs-eb01-q7. It has a serial interval Q0000001-Q9000000, then a piece considered as low serial interval should be in the interval Q0000001-Q0002000.


(Photograph credits: Mercadolibre: mleider)

Serial number in the interval based in the amount of issues

The piece is considered low serial when is in the "low interval" created from the number of digits of the amount of issues. This is more complex to determine, however, it's more fair because it's based on the amount of issues instead of the number of serie digits.

To determine the interval, the number of digits of the issues is divided by 2, the results would the the number of digits to be considered low. When the number of digits is odd, the integer part is used.

The following example is a piece identified as bbcv5bs-aa01-a7, the serie has the interval A0000001-A6000000 with 6,000,000 pieces. The "low serial" interval would be A0000001-A0000999, which is a number of 3 digits based on 7 digits of the amount of issues.


(Photograph credits: Mercadolibre: mleider)

This Replacement banknote piece is an example when the number of digits of the serie and the amount is issues are different. This piece is identified as bbcv1000bs-ba01r, with the interval Z00000001-Z00060000 (estimated) of 8 digits and 60,000 (estimated) pieces. The "low serial" interval would be Z00000001-Z00000099 because the number of digits of the issues is 5 dígitos and the "low serial" should be a number of 2 dígitos.


(Photograph credits: Mercadolibre: saeta2004)

In this case, the start of the serie is different than 1. This piece identified as bbcv20bs-fd01-t7 has the interval T9000001-T9999999 and 999,999 pieces. The "low serial" would be T9000001-T9000999 becase the number of digits of the amount of issues is 6, then the low serial would be 3 digits.


(Photograph credits: Sergio Sucre Castillo: Billetes del BCV)