I would like to decide the issuing date of El Salvador banknotes.
On most notes, there is a printed date on face; that should be the issue date as decided by authorities of country or Central Bank when the decision to print the notes was taken. But on most of them there is another overprinted date (and an extra signature) on back, validating the note. As long as I have seen, the overprinted date is later the printed one (logical).
On our catalog both dates are used, so some notes show the date on front, others the date on back.
On my opinion, we should register as issuing date the one showing on face, and add the other in comments of variety lines; based on: 1) date on face should be the first noticed by collectors (most of dated notes show it on face; a few on back). and 2) overprinted date may have several versions (different dates and maybe typographies, styles, etc.). Similar situation happened on Uruguayan notes when first oficial bank started operations.
Of course catalog is not mine, so decision should be based on what is the opinion of most users and the strategy of Admins.
If possible, later I would like to some sub-rule be added, so there won't be different registrations of same note.
I will mention here Admins involved on notes, so they can give opinion and reach a fast solution.
Just 10 options: you understand binary, or you don't.
Catalog Referee Coins, Banknotes & Exonumia: Uruguay, Cuba, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador, Zamunda, Parva Domus and more.
Indeed, I had already noticed this fact on Salvadoran banknotes. It seems that the date on the obverse indicates the authorization date of a particular issue (or the number of issues of a particular banknote); while the date on the reverse is the date of actual printing (which can be dozens of different dates).
Some issuers date their banknotes according to the day they were printed (Belgium, for example), and this results in dozens, even hundreds, of different date lines on the same page.
Regarding this, some advocate for hundreds of lines, while others advocate for condensing dates by period. A solution I would consider perfect would be a drop-down menu with the dates within different years. This way, collectors could choose to register their banknotes by year or by complete date.
I see your solution as an intermediate approach and believe it's good for organization. But let's wait for other colleagues to comment.
Regards,
Vladimir
Vladimir
Catalogue Administrator and Banknote Master Referee.
Hello; I'm still searching for opinions, and found a Salvadoran catalog of notes, where they are clear on the subject:
Translate for who may have difficulty to read Spanish:
"El Salvador Notes Catalog
IMPORTANT DATA
The oficial date used by Central Reserve Bank of El Salvador and by collectors is the date of issuance (printing) and you can find it on the face of each note.
FACE
This is the oficial date
When you collect notes from El Salvador, this is the date you must look for.
REVERSE
This is the date to intro into circulation.
In other words, when they were available to people; in a single year you may find 2 or 3 different dates. This date may be used as variant or personal target, but is not the date for general search.
THIS IS NOT THE OFICIAL DATE TO COLLECT!
Numismatic Association of El Salvador."
If no other opinion in contrary; I think is the correct option.
Just 10 options: you understand binary, or you don't.
Catalog Referee Coins, Banknotes & Exonumia: Uruguay, Cuba, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador, Zamunda, Parva Domus and more.
In other words, when they were available to people; in a single year you may find 2 or 3 different dates. This date may be used as variant or personal target, but is not the date for general search.
If only two or three dates per year, I would prefer to keep those as yearline dates. It is different from the exact printing dates used by Belgium and France …
Just call me Bram
No new swaps for the moment, still too many half-ongoing swaps to clean up!
In other words, when they were available to people; in a single year you may find 2 or 3 different dates. This date may be used as variant or personal target, but is not the date for general search.
If only two or three dates per year, I would prefer to keep those as yearline dates. It is different from the exact printing dates used by Belgium and France …
I still think date to be used for varieties should be the one on face. When a collector want to identify/register a note, first element will be the country; second is face value, and third is date (that's why Pick and most catalogues use this same steps); all said data is commonly searched on face of note (as usually they are there; at least country and face value). if date is not found, maybe will search on reverse; some countries place issue year on back. But if date is found on face, it is rare someone look for it also on reverse, unless be aware of that is a common practice on that country.
If we use the back date as variety date, there is a high risk frequently people ask to add the front date as new variety line. Not only extra work to referees, who need to explain requester the mistake, but also this would make them feel dumb; in spite is not their fault.
Just 10 options: you understand binary, or you don't.
Catalog Referee Coins, Banknotes & Exonumia: Uruguay, Cuba, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador, Zamunda, Parva Domus and more.
Checking out BNM and our own pages, it already does look like a mess with at least 7 dates on obverse for this one 1 colon type (4 pick numbers but I don't see many differences, except number of signatures), and according to our yearlines and auctions, a few dozen reverse dates and probably many missing … dso definitely more than 2 or 3 per year! So I can of agree now with obverse as yearline date.
Hello! I believe we already have an agreement on the organization of Salvadoran banknotes.
The date that appears on the obverse is the date that should be considered for cataloging purposes (in fact, local catalogs do it this way). The date information on the reverse can be additional information in the line's observation field.
What we already have registered for the reverse dates will not need to be condensed into a single line. We just need to adjust the obverse date in the main field of the line (on the left) and the reverse date can be in the observation field of each respective line.
Thank you for the work done, Daniel! Count on me to help you with this. =)
Regards,
Vladimir
Vladimir
Catalogue Administrator and Banknote Master Referee.
Stato cambiato a Fatto(vladthiengo, 27 Nov 2025, 10:53)
