Collecting

Pick number

Pick number

A Pick number is the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money reference, used in trade and in censuses to identify a type — issuer, denomination, date, or variety letter. A Pick is not a serial: P# 380d names the family; R 85688116 names the example. The Banknote Book (TBB) and local catalogues (BG#, Hernández, Friedberg, Haxby, Schwan) correct or refine that grid. In Colombia Pick often groups dates that González White splits into BG#; that is why records cross both without republishing prices.

Letters matter. Pick 405 is the circulating 1960 5 pesos oro; Pick 405s is this collection’s zero-serial specimen. Pick 418b is the 1980 date without a prefix; Pick 418s, the SPECIMEN Nº 027 specimen. Pick 437 is the 1992 10,000 pesos oro (Banco de México); Pick 437A, the 1994 10,000s already in “pesos.” Using the short number without the letter mixes objects. Specialized free-banking types carry S (S511, S819), not the central-bank block.

This collection cites Pick when it exists and does not invent one for paper that has none — Baraboo scrip is numbered Shafer WI100; the Giori is not a circulating Fr. The glossary keeps separate articles for Haxby, Friedberg, Schwan, and The Banknote Book, anchored on the index. Here the point of Pick is explained and pieces whose records already carry it are pointed to, not a ghost catalogue.

A Pick without its letter, or a missing S on free-banking paper, mixes circulation, specimen, and proof. Records in this collection write 405s, 418s, 430as, S511p1. The folded glossary keeps Friedberg, Haxby, Schwan, and The Banknote Book as anchors for anyone arriving with another key. The serial remains the identity; the Pick, the type.

See also: Friedberg catalog , Schwan catalog , The Banknote Book (TBB) , Haxby catalog , Criswell (Fricke) catalog

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