What is a Block Letter?

? I've been doing this for just a little over a month, entering my 450th bill a few minutes ago ($100 series 1977). What is the block letter? How can I find it? Is there any correlation between Block Letters and the Feeral Reserve Branch from whence the bill originates?

Thanks for you consierate replies?

OK,
Look at a $1 bill.

The first letter in theSerial Number is your FRB - this will always be A - L.  They corresppond with what Federal Reserve Bank put out the bill.

A - Boston
B - New York
C- Philadelphia
D - Cleveland
E - Richmond
F- Atlanta
G - Chicago
H - St. Louis
I - Minneapolis
J - Kansas City
K - Dallas
L - San Francisco

Now, the letter at the END of the serial number - THAT is your Block Letter.
This will be any letter in the alphabet except for O or Z - they do not use those letters.
It could also be an asterisk - this means the original bill was pulled after printing because of some error, and re-printed.

Happy Tracking!!

By the way, if you enter $2's - they are the same as ones in Serial Number configuration.
Other denominations start with TWO letters up front and one letter at the end.
Same rules apply - First letter is your FRB.  Last letter is your Block Letter.
The second letter is nothing.

By the way, no correlation exists between the Block Letter...and the FRB which printed it - all FRB's will print bills with "A" Block Letters, and so on - although the more popular FRBS will tend to get further into the alphabet with Block Letters in a Series run than the not-as-popular ones.

Example, if you want a high block letter, you are more likely to find one on a B or L bill than, say, an H or J bill.

Thanks for that helpful explanation!

No problem

In regard to the FRB designatoin, there is an extra letter at the beginning of 5's through 100's from 1996 forward. The first letter corresponds to the series.

A = 1996, B = 1999, C = 2001 ... L = 2009A

The second letter is the FRB on these notes.

Now I did not know THAT, Tim!!

Ten again, I am not in the habit of entering any but $1's so I probably wouldn't have known it.

I try very hard never to spend anything but $1 bills.

When entering a $5-100 bill, you do not need to change the series like with $1s and $2s.  Markus has it programmed to change to the correct series based on the first letter entered.  This comes in real handy when using the bill entry page with multiple bills of the same denomination.  No need to sort the bills based on the series.  Much faster.

Now, see, I never would have known that, since I do not make a habit of entering anything but ones, really.  I entered a couple of non-ones, a total of maybe 13 bills, of different denominations, nothing higher than a twenty - and entered them mostly just for giggles.

Haven't heard from a single one of them, either.

For denoms of $5 and higher as Tony stated, you do not need to enter the series since it follows what Tim stated in the programming.  So, if you have a 1996 bill it starts with AA**** and the system knows it.  Any bills before the 1996 series, or what is considered old style, will have to have the series picked like ones and twos.