News:

Sign up for the monthly zoom events by sending a PM with your email address to Hitesh

Main Menu

Netherlands Indies De Javasche Bank serial numbers

Started by thelawnet, April 05, 2009, 04:21:52 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

thelawnet

I am collecting serial numbers of Netherlands Indies banknotes of De Javasche Bank. Not sure if anyone here collects them, but if they do I'd be interested.

De Javasche Bank first issued notes in 1827, but I'm looking at the notes issued from 1873 until 1939.

These were issued in several series:

The 'Frame' design of ~1864-~1903 of 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 200, 300, 500, and 1000 guilders
The second 'Frame' design of 10, 25 and 50 guilders, issued from 1873 to 1924.
The Coen & Mercurius design of 100, 200, 300, 500 and 1000 guilders issued 1897-1924
The JP Coen design of 1901 to 1924 of 5 guilders
The 'Java Bank Building' design of 1919-1921 of 20, 30 and 40 guilders
The second JP Coen design of 1925-1931
The Wayang design of 1933-1939

Although there are numerous different designs the notes are actually a single set of notes.

The notes all have the following features:

* each note has a 2 letter 4 number serial number. After 1919, and for the first JP Coen design, the serial numbers were 5 digits, but the first number is always zero, so there is in fact no difference.
* each note has a number on the back, such as 3567, roughly sequential by date across all denominations. This was discontinued for the Wayang series.
* each note is printed with the exact date of issue, such as March 12 1927

The 4 digits mean that a single issue of notes consisted of 9999 notes (0001 to 9999).

The two letter prefixes run consecutively by denomination: AA is followed by AB, AZ by BA; ZZ by AA. Q is not used. This gives 25 * 25 = 625 possible prefixes.

The serial numbers are not necessarily unique - from AA to ZZ is only 6.25 million notes, and the lower denominations were issued in total in much greater numbers than that. Uniqueness is guaranteed by combination of serial number and issue date.

Of the various designs, only the second JP Coen and the Wayang series were still legal tender in 1939, and subsequently after the war. I believe earlier notes were mostly recalled and destroyed. They are therefore very scarce.

I have a fairly large amount of data on these series, but I am still looking for more. In addition I am generally issued in all notes of the earlier series. One thing I am looking to discover is what prefix the notes start with. Also I am generally looking to discover the number of notes issued by denomination and type.

Anyway, I am looking for serial numbers, issue dates, and reverse codes (except for Wayang series) for the following notes:

Any De Javasche Bank notes 1864-October 1925

5 gulden:
Coen notes issued before 21 November 1927,  between 13 December 1927 and 22 April 1930, or after 27 March 1931

Wayang notes issued:

  • on or before 21 November 1934 (prefix IW or earlier)
  • between 5 June 1937 and 4 October 1937 (prefix UC to UN)
  • between 3 May 1939 and 3 July 1939 (prefix VA to VS)
  • on or after 16 August 1939 (prefix KT or later)
10 gulden
Coen notes issued on or before 24/3/1927 (FX or earlier)
Coen notes issued between 3/4/1928 and 23/2/1929 (ZH to BY)
Coen notes issued on or after 12/3/1931 (WW to YT)

Wayang notes issued on or before 3/10/1933 (WW to YT)
Wayang notes issued 5/2/1934 to 20/9/1937 (JP to KH)
Wayang notes issued 19/9/1938 to 28/7/1939 (BF, BG, BH or BI)
Wayang notes issued on or after 31/8/1939 (NE or later)

25 gulden
Coen notes serial prefix LM to MB
Coen notes SR, SS, ST, SU, SV, SW, SX, SY
Coen notes VT, VU, VV, VW

notes CM to DH (Wayang or Coen)

Wayang notes FN, FO, FP, FR, FS or FT
Wayang notes IZ or later

50 gulden
Coen (or Frame) EO to FK prefix
Coen HW to IE
Coen JC, JD, JE

KM, KN, KO, KP, KR, KS (could be Wayang or Coen)

Wayang MM or later

100 gulden
prefix CG to CN (Coen-Mercurius or Coen)
prefix CT, CU, CV, CW, CX
prefix HC

prefix IP to IW (Wayang or Coen)

Wayang MA or later

200 gulden
prefixes RD, RE, RF, RG, RH, RI, RJ (Coen or maybe before)
prefixes RL, RM, RN, RO, RP (Coen)
prefix SS or ST (either Coen or Wayang)
prefix SZ or later (Wayang)

300 gulden
prefix OM to OR (Coen or could be earlier)
prefix OT or later (Coen)

500 gulden
prefix NU, NV, NW (Coen or maybe earlier)
prefix OE (Coen)
prefixes OO and later (Wayang)

1000 gulden
prefix MU (Coen or Coen-Mercurius)
prefix NE or NF (Coen or Wayang)
prefix NI, NJ, NK (Wayang)
prefix NM or later (Wayang)