
On some notes, a star appears in place of the last letter. The letter O is not used because of its similarity to the digit 0, and the letter Z is not used because it is reserved for test printings. At the time of a series change, the suffix letter returns to the letter A and repeats the cycle. The last letter advances through the alphabet when all eight character serial numbers have been printed for a specific Federal Reserve Bank within the same series. The first letter of such a serial number identifies the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) which issued the note since there are 12 FRBs, this letter is always between A and L.


Up through Series 1995, all Federal Reserve notes had serial numbers consisting of one letter, eight digits, and one letter, such as A12345678B now only the $1 and $2 notes still use this form. Each note of the same denomination has its own serial number.
