Collecting

Replacement / star note

Billete de reposición (estrella)

A replacement note — star or asterisk — is printed to substitute a defective example pulled in the plant, so that the accounts and the numbering sequence are not broken. In the United States the classic mark is a star beside the serial. In Colombia, González White and Hernández identify 1970s–1990s replacements by an asterisk beside the numbering or near the manager’s title; later families show a star. Other issues reserve a letter prefix, Z in several countries, or an R on the 1992 10,000 pesos oro.

A replacement is not an error: the faulty sheet is destroyed and the bank inserts a new example with its own mark. It is not a fancy serial either. An ordinary first-of-issue 00000001 and a starred 00113227 are different objects: the first is a low serial; the second, a replacement. Hernández gives those asterisk varieties their own Cód.; a BanRep denomination-year total, which mixes ordinary notes and replacements, is not used here as a printage.

This case records the mark on the 1994 Emberá 10,000-peso notes, Pick 437A / TBB B980az: serials 00113227 and 00249902, each with a star to the right of the upper black serial. González White 2019 (pp. 127–128) lists the 1994 star replacement at 00.100.332–00.239.982; 00113227 sits in that band; 00249902 sits above that ceiling. It is not the 1992 R-prefix replacement, nor a Policarpa 10,000. Both examples are in sleeves, unslabbed; the watermark margin of 00113227 shows foxing.

Anyone comparing a star with a 1970s–1990s asterisk is reading two factory conventions, not two different Picks. The 1994 Emberá record documents that mark on concrete serials. A replacement printage is not published from BanRep’s 1994 10,000-peso total (123.05 million), which mixes ordinary notes and stars.

See also: Printing error , Error note , Serial numbering

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