PMG's Wealth of Online Resources Available for Free

Did you know that Paper Money Guaranty® (PMG®) has a variety of free online resources for all levels of banknote collectors? These resources can help some people get started in the hobby and help others discuss their interests and share their collections.

Here are just a few of the ways PMG serves newbies and veteran collectors alike.

For the rookies — what is it worth?

Have some cool, old banknotes handed down to you or picked up in various travels? While many avid collectors get excited by completing a series, obtaining every type of note in a particular category or acquiring the very best, most beautiful example of a note, most people in the “rookie” category are simply curious about what they have and want to know if it’s worth anything. PMG can help!

PMG is the world’s largest third-party banknote certification service. Its experts basically do two things: determine whether a banknote is genuine and evaluate its condition to give it a grade. Certified notes are then encapsulated in a secure, tamper-evident holder. People pay a fee for PMG certification, but PMG’s free online tools can tell you how rare a note is and what the market shows it is worth.

Good places to start are with the PMG Population Report and its World Price Guide.

The PMG Population Report, divided by country and sortable alphabetically or by how many notes were graded, shows how many examples of a particular type of note have been graded by PMG and how many it determined were in a particular condition, or grade. (Information about the PMG Grading Scale is here.) It also has links to the popular online marketplace, eBay, to give you an idea what particular notes are selling for.

The World Price Guide allows you to find notes by entering search terms (first country and then date, with the search box helpfully offering search suggestions). Average general prices for the note searched are then displayed. Links to eBay also are provided. An article with more details about the World Price Guide is here.

Already collecting? Express yourself and learn more!

People collect banknotes for many reasons, but some of the hobby’s most commonly pursued activities are checking out the collections of others, setting collecting goals, discussing banknotes with other knowledgeable collectors and making one’s own collection better than the rest. PMG provides a way to do all of this at any time of the day or night with people all over the world.

The free online PMG Registry enables collectors to share their PMG-registered banknotes with others securely and remotely and allows members to enjoy everyone else’s collections. Just join, upload images and add information about the notes. PMG even awards cash prizes for the best PMG Registry sets annually and does feature stories every month on particularly interesting collections.

People who love to talk about banknotes with other collectors can check out the PMG Forums, also referred to as Chat Boards, which have thousands of posts discussing a variety of paper money topics. For those who prefer to hold forth in a soliloquy or share diary-style, there are the PMG Journals.

To keep up with the latest auction results, show schedules and discoveries, there’s the PMG News page, where articles are posted regularly.

PMG also maintains online galleries featuring some of the world’s most important collections, such as the D. Brent Pogue Collection of US paper money, the Omar Waddington Collection and the Hsu Collection of Chinese Banknotes. The high-resolution images beautifully display the engravers’ and printers’ art.

And to get the latest news in your email inbox monthly, subscribe to the PMG eNewsletter. Sign up for free to become a member of the PMG Collectors Society and then choose the PMG and related e-newsletters to be delivered to you.

Discuss on the PMG Chat Boards