Banknote Terminology: The Complete Collector's Glossary
The words collectors actually meet, on dealer listings, in the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money, and printed inside grading holders. Every term is defined answer-first, so you get the meaning in the first line.
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This glossary defines the terms you will meet across banknote listings, catalogs, and grading labels, each one leading with the definition and then adding the context that matters when you collect, authenticate, or buy. The 27 entries are grouped into five areas: grading and condition, note types and varieties, security features, currency and economics, and cataloging and sourcing.
How do collectors describe a banknote's condition?
Condition is the single biggest driver of a collectible banknote's value, so collectors and grading services share a precise vocabulary for it. These terms explain how a note is scored, what the numbers and letters mean, and how a certified note differs from a loose one.
Grade
A grade is a standardized score for a banknote's condition, assigned on a 1 to 70 numeric scale used by PMG (Paper Money Guaranty) and PCGS Banknote, where 70 is flawless and 1 is barely intact. The scale was adapted from the Sheldon scale developed for coins.
A higher grade reflects fewer folds, cleaner and brighter paper, sharper corners, and better centering. The number is paired with a descriptive word such as Uncirculated, About Uncirculated, or Very Fine, and at the top of the scale with a paper-quality mark. Our banknote grading guide maps every number to its letter and description.
UNC, AU, XF, VF, F, VG, G (the letter-grade ladder)
The letter-grade ladder is the traditional shorthand for condition, running from Uncirculated at the top down to Good at the bottom: UNC, AU, XF, VF, F, VG, G. Each letter corresponds to a band on the numeric 1 to 70 scale.
| Letter | Full name | Numeric band | What the note looks like |
|---|---|---|---|
| UNC | Uncirculated | 60-70 | Never circulated; no folds, creases, or handling wear |
| AU | About Uncirculated | 50-58 | Nearly new; at most one light fold or a trace of handling |
| XF | Extremely Fine | 40-45 | Light circulation; a few folds, still bright paper and sharp corners |
| VF | Very Fine | 20-35 | Moderate wear; several folds and some softening, full design detail |
| F | Fine | 12-15 | Well circulated; heavier folds, corners rounded, design fully readable |
| VG | Very Good | 8-10 | Heavy wear; possible small edge splits, but intact and identifiable |
| G | Good | 4-6 | Extensive wear; the lowest grade most collectors will buy |
These bands follow PMG's published grading standards; PCGS Banknote uses the same numeric scale with closely equivalent labels. Because Planet Banknote sources notes direct from mints, central banks, and authorized distributors rather than from circulation, the vast majority of our raw notes are Uncirculated unless a listing says otherwise.
EPQ and PPQ (paper quality)
EPQ and PPQ are designations that certify a note's paper is original and unaltered, with no pressing, repair, or chemical cleaning. EPQ (Exceptional Paper Quality) is PMG's mark, and PPQ (Premium Paper Quality) is the equivalent from PCGS Banknote.
The designation sits alongside the numeric grade, so you will see a note described as, for example, PMG 66 EPQ. A note that earns EPQ or PPQ is generally worth more than the same numeric grade without it, because original paper is what serious collectors pay for. See how the two services line up in our grading guide.
Raw vs Certified
Raw means a banknote that has not been graded by a third party; it is sold loose and its condition rests on the seller's description. Certified means a note that PMG or PCGS has authenticated, graded on the 1 to 70 scale, and sealed in a tamper-evident holder with a certification number you can verify online.
Raw notes suit type sets, lower-value issues, and collectors who enjoy handling paper, ideally bought from a source-first dealer that includes a Certificate of Authenticity. Certified notes suit high-value purchases and resale, where an independent grade removes doubt about authenticity and condition. Browse certified inventory in graded banknotes.
Grading Holder (Slab)
A grading holder, often called a slab, is the sealed, tamper-evident plastic case a third-party service uses to encapsulate a note after grading it. The holder carries a printed label with the note's description, its numeric grade, any paper-quality mark, and a unique certification number.
Because that certification number can be looked up on the grading service's website, the holder ties a specific note to an independent record of its authenticity and grade. That verifiability is the main reason a slabbed note trades with more confidence than a raw one.
What are the main banknote types and varieties?
Beyond ordinary circulating issues, collectors chase notes made for special purposes, printed under unusual circumstances, or set apart by a small production detail. These terms name the types and varieties you will meet across a catalog.
Star Note / Replacement Note
A replacement note is a banknote printed to substitute for one that was damaged or spoiled during production, issued under a distinct serial prefix or symbol so the printed run stays complete. In the United States the marker is a star in the serial number, so American replacements are widely called star notes; other countries use special prefix letters instead.
Because printers make them only as needed, replacements survive in far smaller numbers than regular issues and often command a premium. Always confirm the star or prefix against the actual serial number before paying extra, since the marking is the only proof. Our star notes and replacement notes guide covers how to read them.
Specimen Note
A specimen note is a non-circulating example of a banknote produced by an issuing authority or security printer for reference, distribution to banks, or archival record rather than for spending. Specimens are typically overprinted or perforated with the word SPECIMEN and carry all-zero or sample serial numbers, which marks them as demonstration pieces and not legal tender.
Central banks historically sent specimens to correspondent banks so tellers could learn a genuine design and its security features. Collectors prize them for their pristine state and relative rarity, since far fewer were made than the notes released into commerce. Learn more in our specimen notes guide.
Essay and Proof
An essay is a trial design for a banknote, a proposed image or layout that may never have been adopted, while a proof is a trial impression pulled to check the engraved plates before mass printing. Both are pre-production pieces made in tiny numbers, and both are usually of superb quality.
Essays show the design paths a currency might have taken; proofs show an approved design at its sharpest, often printed on special paper or card and sometimes on one side only. Because so few exist, essays and proofs are among the more specialized and sought-after items in paper-money collecting.
Overprint
An overprint is additional text or design printed onto a banknote after its original printing, used to revalue it, authorize a new issuer, mark it as a specimen, or press it into service during an emergency. The overprint is a separate print step layered over the finished note.
Overprints turn one base note into several collectible varieties and are common on provisional and emergency issues, where authorities revalue existing stock faster than they can print new designs. Because an overprint can change a note's status, it is often the detail that determines its catalog number and value.
Provisional / Emergency Issue
A provisional or emergency issue is a banknote pressed into circulation quickly during a shortage, crisis, or change of government, often by overprinting existing notes or printing simplified designs locally. The goal is to keep cash moving when the normal currency supply fails.
These issues appear during wars, hyperinflations, regime changes, and independence transitions, which makes each one a window into a moment of upheaval. Because they were made under pressure and often withdrawn quickly, survivors can be scarce. Germany's Notgeld is the most famous family of emergency money.
Notgeld
Notgeld, German for emergency money, is currency issued by towns, businesses, and local authorities rather than the central government during times of shortage, most famously in Germany and Austria around the First World War and the 1914 to 1923 Weimar inflation era. It filled the gap when official small change and banknotes ran short.
Much Notgeld was colorful and elaborately designed, and some was made from unusual materials, which is why it became collectible almost immediately. It sits at the intersection of history, local art, and crisis currency. Our Notgeld and emergency money guide goes deeper, and you can assemble crisis currency in our hyperinflation sets.
Signature Variety
A signature variety is the same banknote design issued with different official signatures, typically those of a central bank governor or finance minister, creating a distinct collectible version. When the signatories change, the note changes with them, even though the rest of the design stays the same.
Catalogs often assign signature varieties their own sub-numbers, so two notes that look identical at a glance can carry different Pick references and different values. Collectors who build a country in depth chase every signature combination of a given type.
Bearer Note
A bearer note is a banknote payable to whoever physically holds it, with no named payee, which is why older notes carry the phrase promise to pay the bearer on demand. Possession alone transfers value, so a bearer note works like cash by design.
Almost every modern banknote is a bearer instrument, which is exactly what makes paper money simple to spend and, for collectors, simple to own and trade. The concept explains why a demonetized note has no claim on the issuing bank once its legal-tender status ends.
Polymer Note
A polymer note is a banknote printed on a thin, flexible plastic film instead of cotton or cotton-linen paper. Australia issued the first polymer banknotes, developed with the national science agency CSIRO, beginning in 1988, and many countries have since followed.
Polymer lasts longer than paper and enables security features paper cannot carry, most notably a clear transparent window. For collectors, that means the watermark test does not apply to polymer notes; you check the window, the printing, and any color-shifting elements instead.
Uniface Note
A uniface note is a banknote printed on one side only, leaving the back blank. Uniface printing was common on early issues, on emergency money and some Notgeld, and on proofs, where printing a single side was faster or sufficient.
For collectors, a uniface design is a quick identifier that can distinguish an emergency or trial issue from a later two-sided version of the same denomination. It is a small detail, but one that catalogs record.
Which security features prove a banknote is genuine?
The features below are what make a genuine note hard to copy and easy to verify, and they are the checks collectors and grading services run to separate real notes from counterfeits. For a full walkthrough, see how to spot a counterfeit banknote.
Watermark
A watermark is an image or pattern formed by varying the paper's thickness during manufacture, visible when you hold a note up to a light source and used as a security and authentication feature. Because it is built into the paper itself, a watermark is difficult to fake convincingly.
Not every note has one, so a missing watermark does not prove a note is fake. The Zimbabwe 100 trillion dollar note (P-91) has no watermark at all (per Wikipedia), and polymer notes use a clear window instead. Treat the watermark as one check among several, alongside the security thread and color-shifting ink.
Security Thread
A security thread is a thin strip embedded in banknote paper as an anti-counterfeiting feature, often metallic, sometimes carrying microprinting or color-shifting effects, and visible as a solid line when the note is held up to light. Threads are hard to replicate, so authenticators treat them as a primary sign a note is genuine.
On the genuine Zimbabwe 100 trillion dollar note, look for a patterned security thread together with a Zimbabwe Bird printed in color-shifting ink. A flat, printed-on imitation of a thread is a common counterfeit tell. See our counterfeit guide for how to check one.
Intaglio Printing
Intaglio printing is a technique that deposits ink in raised ridges you can feel with a fingertip, produced by pressing paper into ink held in the engraved recesses of a printing plate. That tactile relief is one of the fastest ways to tell a genuine note from a flat printed copy.
Intaglio gives banknotes their crisp lines and three-dimensional feel on portraits, lettering, and denomination numerals. Home printers and photocopiers lay ink flat on the surface, so they cannot reproduce the raised texture, which is why feel is a useful first authentication check.
Microprinting
Microprinting is text printed so small that it reads as a thin line to the naked eye but resolves into legible words under magnification. It is placed in borders, portraits, and background patterns as an anti-counterfeiting feature.
Because scanners and photocopiers cannot hold that level of detail, microprinting blurs into a smudge on a copied note, while a genuine note stays sharp under a loupe. It is a quiet feature most people never notice, but a reliable one for authentication.
Optically-Variable Ink (OVI)
Optically-variable ink, also called color-shifting ink, is ink that changes color as you tilt the note, for example from green to gold or from copper to green. Reproducing a true color shift is expensive, so most counterfeits print a single flat color that never changes at any angle.
Many modern notes carry it on a denomination numeral or an emblem. On the genuine Zimbabwe 100 trillion dollar note, the Zimbabwe Bird is printed in color-shifting ink, one of the note's key authentication points. Not every note uses OVI, so its absence alone does not condemn a note.
What currency and economics terms should collectors know?
Collectible paper money is often the residue of a monetary event: a currency being withdrawn, reset, or destroyed by inflation. These terms name the events that create the notes collectors seek.
Demonetization
Demonetization is the official withdrawal of a banknote's or an entire currency's status as legal tender, after which it can no longer be spent or exchanged for face value at a bank. Once demonetized, a note keeps only collector value, so its worth rests on grade, eye appeal, and certification rather than any promise from the issuing bank.
Zimbabwe is the classic case. The country withdrew its dollar notes, including the 100 trillion, in April 2009 during the switch to a multi-currency system, then formally demonetized the Zimbabwe dollar in 2015 (Reuters, June 2015). Owning a demonetized foreign note is generally legal; see our banknote legality guide for the distinction between owning and spending.
Redenomination
Redenomination is a currency reform that removes zeros from a unit of money, replacing an old currency with a new one at a fixed ratio, for example one new unit for every thousand old units. It is how a government resets prices after inflation has pushed everyday figures into the millions or billions.
Redenomination usually produces a fresh series of notes and, in turn, a fresh set of collectibles. Venezuela redenominated its bolivar three times between 2008 and 2021 (Banco Central de Venezuela), lopping off zeros with each reform through the Fuerte, Soberano, and Digital series. The withdrawn series live on in hyperinflation sets.
Hyperinflation
Hyperinflation is extremely rapid, out-of-control price growth that destroys a currency's value, conventionally defined as inflation exceeding 50 percent per month, a threshold attributed to economist Phillip Cagan. As money loses worth almost by the hour, governments print ever-larger denominations to keep up, which is why hyperinflation produces the dramatic high-value crisis currency collectors prize.
Zimbabwe's episode peaked at roughly 79.6 billion percent month-on-month in mid-November 2008 (per economist Steve Hanke, Cato Institute), yielding the famous 100 trillion dollar note. Hungary's 1946 pengo remains the most extreme case ever recorded (Hanke-Krus World Hyperinflation Table, Cato Institute). Compare every episode in every hyperinflation ranked, or collect the notes in hyperinflation sets.
How are banknotes cataloged and sourced?
Finally, the terms that let collectors identify a specific note precisely and buy it with confidence, from the catalog code that names it to the paperwork that vouches for it.
Pick Number
A Pick number (written P-91 or Pick 91) is the standard catalog reference that uniquely identifies a banknote type, drawn from the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money, the reference originally compiled by Albert Pick. Each number captures a specific country, denomination, and design variety.
Because every issue carries one Pick number, dealers, collectors, and grading services all reference the same code, so a note can be matched precisely no matter who describes it. The Zimbabwe 100 trillion dollar note, for example, is cataloged as P-91. Our Pick numbers and catalog guide explains how the system is structured.
Serial Number
A serial number is the unique identifier printed on each individual banknote, distinguishing it from every other note of the same type. It usually combines a block of letters, the prefix, with a string of digits.
Beyond identification, serial numbers create their own collecting niche: low numbers, solid numbers (all one digit), ladders, and radars (numbers that read the same backward) can carry premiums. A serial number is also how you confirm a replacement note, since the star or special prefix lives inside it.
Block Letter / Serial Prefix
A block letter or serial prefix is the letter or group of letters that precedes the digits in a serial number, marking which production block a note came from. Printers work through blocks in sequence, so the prefix records roughly when in a print run a note was made.
Prefixes matter to collectors for two reasons: they identify replacement notes, which use a distinct prefix or symbol, and they let specialists track which blocks are scarce. On raw notes, the prefix is often the quickest way to place a note within its issue.
Certificate of Authenticity (COA)
A Certificate of Authenticity (COA) is a document from the seller attesting that a banknote is genuine and exactly as described, giving the buyer a named, reachable party who stands behind it. It matters most for raw, uncertified notes, where no third-party holder vouches for the paper.
A COA is not the same as third-party grading: PMG or PCGS certification is an independent expert judgment sealed in a verifiable holder, while a COA is the seller's own written assurance. The two are complementary. Every Planet Banknote order includes a free COA, and we also stock notes certified by both services.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a raw and a certified banknote?
A raw banknote is one that has not been graded by a third party; it is sold loose, as-is, and its condition rests on the seller's description. A certified note has been authenticated and graded on the 1 to 70 scale by PMG or PCGS and sealed in a tamper-evident holder with a certification number you can verify online. Raw suits type sets and lower-value notes from a source-first dealer with a Certificate of Authenticity, while certified suits high-value notes and resale.
What do EPQ and PPQ mean on a graded note?
Both certify original, unaltered paper. EPQ (Exceptional Paper Quality) is PMG's designation and PPQ (Premium Paper Quality) is the equivalent from PCGS Banknote, meaning the note has not been pressed, repaired, or chemically cleaned. A note with EPQ or PPQ is generally worth more than the same numeric grade without it.
What is the difference between a star note and a replacement note?
They describe the same thing from different angles. A replacement note is any note printed to replace one spoiled during production, issued under a distinct serial prefix or symbol. In the United States that marker is a star in the serial number, so American replacements are called star notes; other countries use special prefix letters instead. Because printers make them only as needed, replacements are scarcer than regular issues and often carry a premium.
What is a Pick number and where does it come from?
A Pick number is the standard catalog ID that uniquely identifies a banknote type, drawn from the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money, the reference originally compiled by Albert Pick. Because every issue carries one Pick number, dealers, collectors, and grading services all reference the same code. The Zimbabwe 100 trillion dollar note, for example, is cataloged as P-91.
Is a Certificate of Authenticity the same as third-party grading?
No. A Certificate of Authenticity is the seller's own written assurance that a note is genuine and as described, which is only as strong as the business behind it. Third-party grading by PMG or PCGS is an independent expert judgment of authenticity and condition, sealed in a holder with a verifiable certification number. They are complementary: every Planet Banknote order includes a free COA, and we also stock notes certified by both services.
Planet Banknote is a family-owned dealership in Sarasota, Florida, founded in 2021. Every note is sourced direct from mints, central banks, and authorized distributors, inspected through our Planet Banknote Verified process, and ships with a free Certificate of Authenticity. US orders ship free via USPS Priority, and every order includes a free bonus gift.
New to the hobby? Start with how to collect world banknotes, learn to spot a counterfeit banknote, or browse certified inventory in graded banknotes.