Notaphily is the study of paper money or banknotes.

It is believed that people have been collecting paper money for as long as it has been in use. However, people only started collecting paper money systematically in the 1960s but the turning point occurred in 1970s when notaphily was established as a separate area by collectors.

At the same time, some developed countries in the world such as the USA, Germany and France began publishing their respective national catalogues of paper money which representred major points of reference and literature.

In 1961, THE INTERNATION BANKNOTE SOCIETY (IBNS) was formed, which is an international association of banknote collector with many thousands of members from around the world. The IBNS regularly publishes their journal (IBNS Journal), newsletter "The Newsletter of the IBNS" and regular auctions, lectures and congresses.

The major contributor to this study has been Albert Pick who published some of the earliest catalogues of paper money and through them explained the objective of collecting paper money and the definition of it. Albert Pick is also the author of the capital part of the World Paper Money Catalogue which consists of thousands of pages of almost the entire collection of the world paper money that has ever existed. The catalogue of world paper money is constantly updated and as a legacy of Albert Pick. Almost every note of every country is represented and format of each entry is the following:

[Country Name]P[unique number for the banknote edition]

So, we have something like: Yugoslavia P-117.

One important aspect of collecting banknotes is the condition of items. Banknotes that haven't been issued and circulated are rated UNC and that is the highest value a banknote can have. In addition to that, the value for a specific note in the world paper money catalogue is listed for UNC condition.

People usually collect paper money by:

• Topic (wildlife, ships, famous people)
• Time Period
• Country (native or favourite)
• Serial Number
• Grade