Open data

What a fancy serial number is actually worth

786, repeating digits, low numbers — a fancy serial is worth more. The lie is the size of it. We compared plain notes against fancy-serial ones across 9 denominations and 3,365 completed sales.

Denomination by denomination

Median of the median sale price for each group, from our published value catalogue.

What this measurement is, and what it is not

This compares two groups within one denomination: identities with no modifier at all, against those whose only modifier is the serial. It is not a matched-pair experiment. Two ₹100 notes differ by governor, series, year and condition as well as by serial, and the groups are not balanced on any of those.

So an effect below 1× does not mean a fancy serial is a penalty. It means the fancy premium, whatever it is, is smaller than the variation between notes in that denomination — which is itself the useful finding, and the honest way to report it.

The ceiling, and the floor under it

The dearest single fancy note we hold a completed sale for is ₹100 note — fancy serial number · Governor Sanjay Malhotra, at ₹75,000. Across all 8 recorded sales of that same identity the middle price is ₹532.

Both numbers are true. Somebody trying to talk you into a sale will quote the first. The second is what is most likely to happen to you.

How this was collected

These are completed sales — prices somebody paid, not asking prices and not a price guide's estimate, gathered from independent Indian shops and grouped on one identity key. In total we hold 1,658 recorded sales across 53 fancy-serial identities, with a middle price of ₹1,128.

Take the data

The table above, as a file: CSV · JSON

Cite it as: The Currency Bazaar, "What a fancy serial number is actually worth", 3,365 completed sales as of 2026-09-20. https://thecurrencybazaar.com/fancy-number-note-value

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