How WorldBanknotes.eu Catalogues Banknotes
This page explains how WorldBanknotes.eu builds and reviews a catalogue record: what is read from the banknote itself, what is taken from specialist references, what is our own editorial classification, and what remains unresolved. A catalogue entry can look equally confident whether a detail was observed, quoted or inferred, so the distinctions matter.
This is the current working method for new records and for earlier records when they are reviewed. Because the catalogue has developed over time, some older entries may not yet reflect every part of the process described below. They are reviewed progressively, and the limits of the available evidence are stated explicitly.
Last reviewed: 14 September 2026
1. Scope of the Catalogue
WorldBanknotes.eu catalogues banknotes that it has physically handled as part of its own collection or stock. Records are created from notes examined and scanned in house. We do not create product records solely for issues seen in external catalogues, which means coverage follows acquisition rather than any attempt at completeness.
The catalogue is therefore not a complete or definitive listing of the world’s banknotes, and it is not presented as one. Coverage of any country reflects what we have been able to acquire; some countries are represented by a single note, others by several dozen. The catalogue grows continuously, and country, currency, issuing-authority, printer and theme pages are published as a reference layer around it.
Catalogue records also function as product listings for available stock. That commercial dimension is kept separate from the catalogue statements throughout this page and is addressed in section 10.
2. The Catalogue Data Model
Banknote records are organised around the same structured fields, so that notes can be compared across countries and periods rather than read only as free text:
- country, currency and issuing authority, each linked to its own profile page;
- WorldBanknotes.eu series, denomination and issue year or date;
- Pick reference and The Banknote Book reference;
- banknote type: circulation, commemorative, replacement, unissued or foreign exchange certificate;
- signatures, printer, dimensions, substrate and watermark;
- WorldBanknotes.eu theme;
- condition;
- editorial sections: introduction, obverse and reverse descriptions, and Collector’s Insight;
- obverse, reverse and combined images.
Several of these fields use a fixed vocabulary — banknote type, substrate and theme — so that filtering behaves consistently. Others are free text because the underlying information is not standardised across issuers.
Product records do not currently carry a per-field citation field: values are recorded without a separate published footnote for each field. Sourcing is visible at the level of our printer profiles and our Collector Guide articles, which carry named references, rather than on individual product pages.
3. How Technical Fields Are Established
Different fields rest on different kinds of evidence. Rather than apply one universal hierarchy to everything, we work field by field. The table below states what normally establishes each field and what kind of evidence that is.
| Field | What normally establishes it | Nature of the evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Denomination, printed dates, inscriptions | The banknote in hand and its in-house scans | Observed |
| Visible design, obverse and reverse composition | The banknote in hand and its in-house scans | Observed |
| Depicted people, places and historical subjects | The banknote in hand, supported by issuing-authority material and specialist references as applicable | Observed and reference-derived |
| Substrate and watermark | Examination of the note where the feature is clear, supported by issuer, printer or specialist references as needed | Observed and reference-derived |
| Pick / SCWPM reference | The relevant specialist catalogue notation | Catalogue-derived |
| TBB reference | The Banknote Book | Catalogue-derived |
| Signatures | Visible signature evidence on the note, combined with attribution in The Banknote Book, SCWPM or Numista | Observed and catalogue-derived |
| Dimensions | Specialist catalogue and reference values | Reference-derived |
| Issuer and issue information | Issuing-authority material where available, supplemented by specialist references | Officially documented or reference-derived |
| Printer | Visible imprint where present; issuer or printer documentation; documented printer-profile research | Observed, officially documented or reference-derived |
| Series and theme | WorldBanknotes.eu classification systems | Editorial |
| Historical facts and symbolic interpretation | Sources appropriate to the claim, followed by clearly identified WorldBanknotes.eu interpretation | Reference-derived and editorial |
Specialist references consulted as applicable include Banknote.ws, Greysheet’s The Banknote Book, the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money (Pick) and Numista. No single reference is used for every field or every note. Where practical, a field is compared with the physical note and with the sources relevant to that field. This is a targeted assessment of particular details, not a blanket verification of every statement in a record. Selected external resources are listed on our Banknote Resources page.
4. Catalogue Numbers and Varieties
Catalogue numbers are quoted from the systems that assign them. WorldBanknotes.eu does not assign Pick or The Banknote Book numbers, and does not create references of its own.
The two systems do not divide the material in the same way. A single Pick reference often covers several dated or signed varieties that The Banknote Book separates with its own suffixes, which is why both are recorded where both exist. Our guide to reading banknote catalogue references explains the numbering conventions in more detail.
A worked example from the catalogue: the Guinea 5000 francs dated 2015, 2021, 2022 and 2024 is catalogued under one Pick reference, P-49, and under four separate references in The Banknote Book: B340a, B340c, B340d and B340e. The design, printer, dimensions and watermark are shared; date and signature combination distinguish the varieties. Recording both systems keeps that distinction visible instead of collapsing four records into one.
Where a catalogue number cannot be established, no number is asserted. A blank field may also identify an older record awaiting review, so it should not be read as proof that a reference does not exist. Where the systems conflict, section 11 applies.
5. Dates and Signatures
The date recorded for a note is the date the note carries, or — for undated issues and for issues where the printed date is not the date of issue — the dating used by the specialist references. Most records carry a year; some carry a date range or a full calendar date, following the reference material and the note itself. A printed date is not in itself evidence of when a note entered circulation, a distinction explained in our guide to dating a banknote.
Signatures are recorded as a combination, with the office held by each signatory where that is established. The signature itself is visible on the note; the identification of the person and the office normally is not. Names and offices are therefore checked, as applicable, against one or more of The Banknote Book, SCWPM and Numista rather than read from the note alone. Our guide to banknote signatures sets out why signature combinations matter for identification.
Where a note is confirmed to bear no signature, the field records None. Where a signature cannot be attributed with confidence, no identity is asserted; the field may remain unresolved or await review rather than being completed by inference.
6. Printers, Dimensions, Substrate and Watermarks
Printer. Where a note carries a printer’s imprint, that imprint is the starting point. Where it does not, attribution rests on issuer or printer documentation and on the research recorded in our printer profiles. The profiles state which sources were reviewed; where an important uncertainty remains, they also identify what those sources did not establish. The profile for the Bank of the Lao P.D.R. Printing House is a representative example: official sources confirm the printing house and its role, issue-level attribution is drawn from specialist catalogue references, and details such as a founding date, plant address and equipment inventory are deliberately not asserted because the public sources reviewed do not establish them.
Verification at company level is not the same as confirmation that a particular note was produced at a particular plant. The profiles keep those two statements apart, and so does the catalogue. Where a printer is not established for a note, the field records Unknown. Our guide to who prints the world’s banknotes explains why attribution is often indirect.
Dimensions. Dimensions are taken from specialist catalogue and reference sources. They are not measurements of the photographed specimen, and they should not be read as such. Published figures are generally nominal, and individual notes can vary slightly through cutting tolerance and handling.
Substrate. Paper, polymer and hybrid substrates are assessed from the physical note and supported by reference data where needed. Where a construction cannot be established confidently from the note itself, the classification follows an issuer’s or printer’s description rather than an inference from appearance alone.
Watermark. Where a watermark is checked directly, the note is examined in transmitted light, as described in our guide to checking a banknote against the light. What is visible and what it depicts are two different statements: the form can be observed, while naming a portrait or emblem may depend on issuer or specialist reference material. None is used only where the absence of a watermark has been established; an unreviewed blank is not treated as None.
7. WorldBanknotes.eu Series and Theme Classifications
Series and theme are WorldBanknotes.eu editorial classifications. They exist to make the catalogue navigable, and they do not necessarily reproduce an issuer’s formal series structure or a specialist catalogue’s grouping.
Series names follow a consistent format: a year or year range, then a short descriptive name — for example 2015–2024 | Modern Franc Series. Groupings are drawn where something changes that a collector would recognise: a monetary reform, a change of political era, a change of design generation or production technology, or a commemorative issue standing apart from circulating ones. The aim is a small number of coherent groups per country rather than a reproduction of every catalogued interval.
Themes assign one dominant subject to each classified note, chosen from a fixed list of fifteen values and applied to the design as a whole rather than to any single element that happens to appear on it. Each theme page publishes what belongs in that theme and where its boundary sits, so that the classification can be checked against its own rules. Themes describe what a note is about; they do not describe why it was issued.
Because both systems are ours, they are open to revision as the catalogue grows, and a grouping may be renamed or redrawn.
8. Images and Representative Banknotes
Catalogue imagery is produced in house from physical banknotes handled by WorldBanknotes.eu when records are created. We do not use issuer images, dealer images or third-party photography. Each listing presents obverse, reverse and combined views representative of the catalogued type or variety.
Where more than one example of a note is held, the serial number and prefix of the banknote supplied may differ from the photographed example; this is stated on product pages and in the Terms & Conditions. In a small number of closely related listings, an identical reverse image may be reused where the reverse design is unchanged — for instance the 1983, 1985 and 1986 Costa Rica 5 colones. In that group, the listing-specific obverse images show the dates and signature combinations that distinguish the records.
The imagery documents the catalogued type or variety; it is not a guarantee that the exact serial-numbered specimen shown will be supplied. Every published catalogue image is made in house from a banknote physically handled by WorldBanknotes.eu. Where an image is reused, that use is limited to a design side that is the same across the related records.
9. Editorial Descriptions and Collector’s Insight
Catalogue records are structured to include an introduction, obverse and reverse descriptions, and a Collector’s Insight. These follow a house writing system: description proceeds from what is visible to how the composition is arranged and only then to what it means, and the tone is curatorial rather than promotional.
Obverse and reverse descriptions begin with the banknote and its in-house imagery, organising what can be observed before adding context. Identifying a depicted person, building or site, however, often depends on reference material, and an identification can be mistaken; corrections are welcome.
Collector’s Insight is editorial context based on the note and the reference material available for it. It places a note among related issues and points to details that distinguish it — signature combinations, prefixes, dated varieties, substrate or series position. It is not a substitute for the structured identification fields. The catalogue does not publish a citation beside every sentence, so when a conclusion depends on a specific date, signature, prefix or catalogue variety, the relevant technical fields should be read alongside the source systems named in section 3. Apparent conflicts can be submitted through the correction route in section 12.
10. Condition, Authenticity and Commercial Listings
Condition is assessed in house, by WorldBanknotes.eu, against the standard adjectival grading scale used by collectors. The catalogue focuses primarily on uncirculated stock; where a note is assigned a different grade, that grade is stated on its product page.
Grades are assigned by WorldBanknotes.eu and are not third-party grading or certification. The notes are not encapsulated by a grading service or supplied with certificates of authenticity. Grading is our own judgement, applied as consistently as possible across the catalogue. What the grades mean is set out in our guide to banknote grading, and grading terms are defined in the glossary.
The authenticity guarantee is a commercial commitment set out in the Terms & Conditions, separate from the editorial method described here. Product descriptions, withdrawal rights and the remedies available under applicable law are set out in those terms and summarised in the Collector’s FAQ. Statutory consumer rights apply independently and are neither created nor limited by this methodology page.
11. Sources, Uncertainty and Conflicting References
There is no single source that answers every question about a banknote. Issuing authorities are often silent about older issues; specialist catalogues are the practical reference for numbering and varieties but sometimes disagree with each other, and occasionally with the issuer. Which source carries most weight therefore depends on the field, as set out in section 3. Source conflicts are reviewed according to the field and the available evidence, not by applying a fixed order of precedence.
The catalogue distinguishes three different states. None means that the absence of a feature, such as a signature or watermark, has been established. Unknown means that the field has been reviewed but the value could not be established from the available evidence. A blank field means only that no value is currently recorded; it may identify an unlisted reference, incomplete information or an older record awaiting review. These states should not be treated as interchangeable.
Sourcing is most visible in two parts of the site. Printer profiles carry named references and a dated research note. Collector Guide articles carry external references and, where relevant, explain how comparisons were assembled. Individual product records do not display field-by-field citations; their information is established through the process described here. Selected reference works and organisations used in our research are listed on the Banknote Resources page.
This method is applied to new records and progressively when earlier records are reviewed. Differences in completeness can therefore remain while that review is ongoing.
12. Corrections and Revisions
Catalogue records are revised when better evidence appears. Factual corrections supported by evidence are welcomed and reviewed, whether they concern a catalogue reference, a signature attribution, a printer, a watermark description, a date, a misidentified subject or a series placement.
To submit a correction, write to info@worldbanknotes.eu or use the contact page, naming the record and, where possible, the reference or documentation that supports the correction. Submissions that identify a source are the most useful, and a correction that cannot be resolved may result in the field being qualified or returned to an unresolved state rather than changed to an alternative assertion.
Questions about a delivered item — its condition, description or authenticity — are handled under the Terms & Conditions rather than as editorial corrections.
13. Editorial Responsibility
WorldBanknotes.eu is curated and operated from Lithuania by Audrius Moskaliovas, a member of the International Bank Note Society. Catalogue records, classifications and editorial texts are reviewed and approved by him before publication, and editorial responsibility for the content of this catalogue rests with him. Further background is on the About page.
Membership of a collector society is not an accreditation of the catalogue, and nothing on this page should be read as a professional opinion for valuation, insurance or legal purposes.
14. Revision History
| Version | Date | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | 14 September 2026 | First publication of the catalogue methodology, following an internal review of the catalogue data model, imaging practice, classification systems and sourcing. |
Substantive changes to this page will be recorded here with the date on which they take effect.