Reader 'Scott' brought to my attention a matched pair that is being auctioned at GreatCollections. The serial number was not on Project 2013B's list of confirmed pairs, so this pair comes in as Pair #40. The gavel comes down on April 9th, and already has 21 bids with over 42 days to go! Current bid is $1400 but I expect it go much higher.
This is the first PCGS certified matched pair that I have seen. Unlike PMG certified sets, PCGS has used the description of both Duplicate Serials and Production Error. An online forum described his experience with PMG who refused to call these bills an Error. After much back and forth, it sounded like PMG agreed to finally call it an Error, but there is no visual proof of that yet, and your results may vary! PCGS also added the term 'Note 1 of Duplicate S/N Pair' and 'Note 2 of Duplicate S/N Pair' on the Fort Worth and DC notes respectively.
The DC note is pretty rough shape, so I am going to go out on a limb and make an educated guess that this pair will sell for $5850. This is based 100% on a gut feel. Regardless of outcome, now that matched pairs are slowly making it to a real auction house, rather than eBay, we'll have a better feel of what these matched pairs are worth. These auction houses, particularly GreatCollections, specializes in coins and paper money auctions, so in my opinion their audience is bigger than eBay due to their specialization and advertising, and more bidders with deep pockets.
Did I mention that if you auction your pair at GreatCollections, there is no auction fee charged to the seller? Ebay charges about 10% from what I have heard (let me know if I am way off!). Last year there were two matched pairs listed on Ebay that did not catch a bid; I suspect that was due to a smaller pool of buyers being exhausted after two pairs had been sold a few months earlier for $9301 and $3705 respectively.
Here's an example of a GreatCollections high value auction. Someone with deep pockets bought this $1,000 bill (Gold Certificate, when money was back by something other than promises) from 1882 for a mere $277,875.00. Includes buyer's fee of $30,875.00 (12.5%).
The auction listing for the 2013 matched pair can be found at GreatCollections
Useful Links
Serial Number Submission Form: https://project2013b.blogspot.com/p/submit.html
Project 2013B Database: http://bit.ly/3KNpX3I
Collector Resources and Supplies: http://bit.ly/3DPo2Y7
Help support Project 2013B: https://ko-fi.com/cartoons
My store (currency themed items): https://rdbl.co/3Ms0Jp8
My store (general themed items): https://1zin.short.gy/2013store
