Refining giulcenc’s tables

This post is a work-in-progress. Its intention is to refine (and correct when necessary) giulcenc's tables of printing schemes, relating printer codes (shortcodes) with serial numbers on Euro banknotes. These tables can be found on the Italian EBT Forum, on the topic Corrispondenza tra codice corto e seriale (miniguida). In order to make these refinements, I've been mainly analysing notes on Eurotracer (“ET”), and double-checking it all on Guy Sohier’s liste.eurobillets.free.fr (“liste”).

IMPORTANT GENERIC OBSERVATIONS

• Maybe the tables should display columns numbered right to left, like they are on the plates in reality (or at least on some of the plates — check ECB production videos, showing both whole sheets and control tables):

Still frame of the video PRODUCTION OF THE FIRST SERIES €50 BANKNOTE, accessible on ECB's Footage for TV stations webpage.

MYSTERIES

• What is a “charge”? How many sheets are there in a charge, and does it depend on the scheme, or on being a supplemental plate or not? For example, sheets for 5-euro P004 / X notes are numbered in bundles of 100, so that no number is left out (on A6 in consecutive sheets, X000000000000x to X0000000099x, then it jumps to X0000006000x to X0000006099x, and so on, because, on the same sheets, J1 is X0000005900x to X0000005999x, etc.) — in this case, how many bundles make a ”charge”?
• What happens when there are missing cells on a scheme? Are the notes on those cells printed without a serial number and destroyed, or not printed at all? Are those cells missing because of an error at the program responsible for the numeration, is the plate damaged there, or is it for any other reason?
• How and why are supplementary / auxiliary plates used? How can they print such small ranges? Are they used to reprint in bulk entire sheets that came out with errors from the main plates and then destroyed (that is, the so called “replacement banknotes”)?
• I have a sequence of notes with a plate change (most likely for replacement sheets): R007** / RA*******81* (and others up to 81) is followed by R005** / RA*******82* (and then 83 and so on). So, are printed replacement sheets placed in order, in the exact same place of the sheets they replace, before cutting the sheets? This seems to be arduous work and I can’t see the point of it. Check also this case of a single outlier note in (serial number) numerical sequence, printed on a different plate (?!)
• If a specific note in a sheet doesn’t pass control does it go to a pool of error notes until a whole sheet of correctly positioned but unrelated numbers can be printed? Or is that specific serial number lost forever?
• When there are very short ranges of numbers printed on supplementary plates, it’s extremely common that the figures on positions 7 and 8 (or 8 and 9, if you count the letter) — that is, the first figures unrelated with the cell position — are 97-99, or 47-49 (for example, F00950597, H55280198, E07612099, L31152747, F01051048, N**038349, P1794**99) — or any number close to these. How come?
• Some schemes (at least R/R tenners and V/V fivers) are in reality very close to what giulcenc found but not quite, since cell changes are made in the middle of the supposed scheme. Check for example this blog post.
• How can giulcenc know the upper limits of a scheme right after the banknotes had started their circulation? Privileged sources? Relying exclusively on eBay and other online auctions (assuming the auctioneers themselves have privileged sources, so they’re selling the first and last notes of each batch)?
• Does Guy Sohier have physical evidence of every plate he reports as valid? (Apparently not always. ErGo told me that S004 and S005 fivers were for a time on Sohier's liste. I may have found other extant cases. For example, there are no more than half a dozen G006 5-euro items on ET that could be considered likely to exist.)
• Is Guy Sohier aware of all the rare schemes? Some plates seem not to be valued enough on his catalogue. Also, very few of the special schemes are valued differently from their normal combination plate / country notes.

To check in which countries I might find some EBT users with some of the unsolved or partially unsolved numbering schemes, see also http://leopardi.miuku.net/tmp/denomination_serial_detailedshortcode_country.txt

NEW TABLES

1L P011xx (b)

1L P011xx (c)

Note: known upper limit is currently L2499149 but could be larger, by leaps of 270, up to the most likely L2499959, as depicted on this table

1L E003xx (b)

1L E003xx (c)

1L E003xx (d)

WIP (known upper limit is L2593653, as depicted on this table, but the scheme could cycle, by leaps of 54, up to L2593977 at most)

1L H006xx (b)

1L H006xx (c)

WIP (known upper limit is L2614534, as depicted on this table, but the scheme could cycle, by leaps of 135, up to L2614939 at most)

1L E005xx-E006xx (b)

WIP (although column 1 is definitely missing, I am not entirely certain if rows G to I are actually missing, although I suspect so; also, known upper limit is L307579, as depicted on this table, but the scheme could cycle, by leaps of 60 — or 90 if rows G to I are printed —, up to L307879 at most)

1L E005xx-E006xx (c)

1L E006xx (a)

1L E006xx (b) WIP

1M U002xx (a)

1M U002xx (b)

1M U002xx-U004xx

1M H004xx (b)

Note: known upper limit is currently M0300449, as depicted on this table, but could be larger, by leaps of 225, up to M2999999 at most

• 1M U002xx-U003xx

  (replaces both tables below, if detail isn’t wanted)

1M U002xx (c)

1M U003xx

• 1M U007xx-U012xx

  corrected (replaces current table, if not detailed in the 2 tables below)

1M U007xx-U010xx

1M U011xx-U012xx

1M U020xx-U021xx

corrected (replaces current table)

1M H007xx (c)

1M H007xx-H008xx (c) WIP

1N F003xx (b)

1P G002xx (b)

WIP (known upper limit is P066034, as depicted on this table, but the scheme could cycle, by leaps of 135, up to P069949 at most)

1P G005xx (b)

WIP (known upper limit is P1486000, as depicted on this table, but the scheme could cycle, by leaps of 432, up to P1499823 at most)

1P G008xx

WIP (known upper limit is P2051107, as depicted on this table, but the scheme could cycle, by leaps of 108, up to P2051971 at most)

1P G009xx (b)

WIP (could most likely start at P2052460 and be cyclic as depicted on this table, or just start at P2053000; if cyclic, upper limit could be larger, by leaps of 270, up to P2099979)

1P G023xx (b)

WIP (known upper limit is P1623239, as depicted on this table, but the scheme could cycle, by leaps of 240, up to P1639799 at most)

1P G025xx (b)

WIP (known upper limit is P1979119, as depicted on this table, but the scheme could cycle, by leaps of 120, up to P1999999 at most)