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Table of Contents
Introduction to the Huntoon-Shiva Encyclopedia of U. S. National Bank Notes
In the Beginning--Wendell Wolka
Origin of Type 2 Numbers--Peter Huntoon
Ransom At the Border--Lee Lofthus
Unreported Nebraska NBN--Matt Hansen
1862 $ 63 Legal Type Classification Chart Revised--Peter Huntoon
Southern Printers-Pt. 2--Charles Derby
Not Just About Vignettes--Tony Chibbaro
Fractional Currency Wallet--Rick Melamed
official journal of
The Society of Paper Money Collectors
Announcing The Huntoon-Shiva
Encyclopedia of U.S. National Bank Notes
America?s Oldest and Most Accomplished Rare Coin Auctioneer
1550 Scenic Avenue, Suite 150, Costa Mesa, CA 92626 ? 800.458.4646 ? 949.253.0916
470 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022 ? 800.566.2580 ? 212.582.2580
1735 Market Street, Suite 130, Philadelphia, PA 19103 ? 800.840.1913 ? Philly@StacksBowers.com
Info@StacksBowers.com ? StacksBowers.com
California ? New York ? Philadelphia ? New Hampshire ? Oklahoma ? Hong Kong ? Paris
SBG PM Nov22Consign PR 220801
Stack?s Bowers Galleries Currency
Continues to Break Records
Consign now to the November 2022 Baltimore Showcase Auction
LEGENDARY COLLECTIONS | LEGENDARY RESULTS | A LEGENDARY AUCTION FIRM
Auction: November 1-4 & 7-10, 2022 ? Costa Mesa, CA
West Coast: 800.458.4646 ? East Coast: 800.566.2580 ? Consign@StacksBowers.com
Fr. 260. 1886 $5 Silver Certificate. PMG Gem Uncirculated 65 EPQ.
Estimate: $30,000-$40,000 ? Realized $50,400
Fr. 355. 1890 $2 Treasury Note. PMG Gem Uncirculated 66 EPQ.
Estimate: $50,000-$75,000 ? Realized $93,000
Fr. 375. 1891 $20 Treasury Note. PMG Gem Uncirculated 65 EPQ.
Estimate $12,500-$17,500 ? Realized $20,400
Fr. 1200am. 1922 $50 Gold Certificate Mule Note.
PMG Choice Uncirculated 64.
Estimate $8,000-$12,000 ? Realized $24,000
Fr. 2200-Idgs. 1928 $500 Federal Reserve Note.
Minneapolis. PMG Choice Uncirculated 64 EPQ.
Estimate $15,000-$25,000 ? Realized $31,200
Fr. 2407. 1928 $500 Gold Certificate.
PMG Choice Very Fine 35 EPQ.
Estimate $15,000-$25,000 ? Realized $19,200
T-3. Confederate Currency. 1861 $100. PMG Choice Uncirculated 63.
Estimate: $30,000-$50,000 ? Realized $36,000
Fr. 2211-Glgs. 1934 $1000 Federal Reserve Note. Chicago.
PMG Gem Uncirculated 65 EPQ.
Estimate $15,000-$25,000 ? Realized: $36,000
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312
Introduction to the Huntoon-Shiva Encyclopedia
In the Beginning--Wendell Wolka
Origin of Type 2 Numbers--Peter Huntoon
Unreported Nebraska NBN--Matt Hansen
Ransom At the Border--Lee Lofthus
335
310
315
330
349 Southern Printers-Keating & Ball-Pt. 2--Charles Derby
359 Not Just About Vignettes--Tony Chibbaro
370 Fractional Currency Wallet--Rick Melamed
SPMC.org * Paper Money * Sep/Oct 2022 * Whole Number 341
305
1862 & 63 Legal Type Classification Chart-Rebised--Peter Huntoon 338
Columns
Advertisers
SPMC Hall of Fame
The SPMC Hall of Fame recognizes and honors those individuals who
have made a lasting contribution to the society over the span of many years.?
Charles Affleck
Walter Allan
Doug Ball
Hank Bieciuk
Joseph Boling
F.C.C. Boyd
Michael Crabb
Forrest Daniel
Martin Delger
William Donlon
Roger Durand
C. John Ferreri
Milt Friedberg
Robert Friedberg
Len Glazer
Nathan Gold
Nathan Goldstein
James Haxby
John Herzog
Gene Hessler
John Hickman
William Higgins
Ruth Hill
Peter Huntoon
Don Kelly
Lyn Knight
Chet Krause
Allen Mincho
Clifford Mishler
Judith Murphy
Dean Oakes
Chuck O?Donnell
Roy Pennell
Albert Pick
Fred Reed
Matt Rothert
Herb & Martha
Schingoethe
Hugh Shull
Glenn Smedley
Raphael Thian
Daniel Valentine
Louis Van Belkum
George Wait
D.C. Wismer
From Your President
Editor Sez
New Members
Quartermaster
Uncoupled
Cherry Picker
Obsolete Corner
Small Notes
Chump Change
Robert Vandevender 307
Benny Bolin 308
Frank Clark 309
Michael McNeil 362
Joe Boling & Fred Schwan 365
Robert Calderman 372
Robert Gill 374
Jamie Yakes 376
Loren Gatch 378
Stacks Bowers Galleries IF C
Pierre Fricke 305
Higgins Museum 328
Bob Laub 328
Lyn Knight 329
Tampa Paper Expo 337
PCGS-C 348
Evangelisti 358
Tom Denly 358
Tony Chibbaro 361
Fred Bart 377
FCCB 377
ANA 379
PCDA IBC
Heritage Auctions OBC
Fred Schwan
Neil Shafer
SPMC.org * Paper Money * Sep/Oct 2022 * Whole Number 341
306
Officers & Appointees
ELECTED OFFICERS
PRESIDENT Robert Vandevender II
rvpaperman@aol.com
VICE-PRES/SEC'Y Robert Calderman
gacoins@earthlink.net
TREASURER Robert Moon
robertmoon@aol.com
BOARD OF GOVERNORS
Mark Anderson mbamba@aol.com
Robert Calderman gacoins@earthlink.net
Gary Dobbins g.dobbins@sbcglobal.net
Matt Drais stockpicker12@aol.com
Mark Drengson markd@step1software.com
Pierre Fricke
aaaaaaaaaaaapierrefricke@buyvintagemoney.com
Loren Gatch lgatch@uco.edu
William Litt Billlitt@aol.com
J. Fred Maples
Cody Regennitter cody.regennitter@gmail.com
Wendell Wolka
APPOINTEES
PUBLISHER-EDITOR
Benny Bolin smcbb@sbcglobal.net
ADVERTISING MANAGER
Wendell Wolka purduenut@aol.com
LEGAL COUNSEL
Megan Reginnitter mreginnitter@iowafirm.com
LIBRAIAN
Jeff Brueggeman
MEMBERSHIP DIRECTOR
Frank Clark frank_clark@yahoo.com
IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT
Shawn Hewitt
WISMER BOOk PROJECT COORDINATOR
Pierre Fricke
From Your President
Robert Vandevender II
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Paper Money * July/August 2020
6
maplesf@comcast.net
purduenut@aol.com
jeff@actioncurrency.com
In June, we were very sad to learn of the passing of our Hall of Fame
Member Don C. Kelly. As most of you know, Don was a big part of our
hobby and made significant contributions in research and literary
works. No doubt many of you have notes in your collections that at
one time were in a case owned by Don. He will be missed.
Recently, I read an article regarding changes in English currency.
With those of you owning a wallet full of ?paper? Bank of England ?20
and ?50 banknotes, I trust that by now you have exchanged them for
the new polymer notes as the legal tender status will be withdrawn at
the end of September. I must admit, the new ?50 polymer note
featuring the computer scientist Alan Turing is a sharp looking note.
I have fantastic news to report. Peter Huntoon and Andrew Shiva have
worked hard over several years to create the new ?Huntoon-Shiva
Encyclopedia of U.S. National Bank Notes.? I am pleased to announce
that this work will be jointly published by the National Currency
Foundation and the Society of Paper Money Collectors and available to
our members via a link from the SPMC website and our SPMC Wiki
Page. Please check it out.
In addition to the Huntoon-Shiva Encyclopedia, we have several new
data-related resources in the works and will be rolling them out to the
membership and the public in the upcoming months so stay tuned.
Some of these upcoming items will be available free to the public while
others will be restricted to our membership. Please keep an eye out for
announcements in upcoming issues of Paper Money.
In July, I made a visit to the Summer FUN show in Orlando. Although
the ?Summer in Florida? show isn?t quite as large as the Winter FUN
show in January, it appeared to have a very good turnout. After
dropping off a stack of notes to a third-party grading service in hopes
of the grades being returned with favorable results, I walked the floor
and was happy to meet with several of our members and friends.
During our August routine SPMC Board of Governors meeting, I was
happy to welcome our two newest board members, Jerry Fochtman and
Andy Timmerman to our group. I am looking forward to their
contributions to the Board.
Planning for our annual meeting at the Winter FUN is continuing
and looking good. e will be providing more details on the SPMC
website shortly. Make plans on attending. I hope to see many of you
there in January.
307
Terms?and?Conditions?
The?Society? of? Paper?Money? Collectors? (SPMC)? P.O.?? Box?7055,?
Gainesville,?GA??? 30504,?publishes??? PAPER??? MONEY?(USPS?? 00?
3162)? every? other? month? beginning? in? January.? Periodical?
postage? is? paid? at? Hanover,? PA.? Postmaster? send? address?
changes? to? Secretary? Robert? Calderman,? Box? 7055,?Gainesville,?
GA? 30504.??Society? of? Paper?Money? Collectors,?Inc.? 2020.? All?
rights? reserved.? Reproduction? of? any? article? in?whole? or? part?
without?written?approval? is?prohibited.? Individual?copies?of? this?
issue?of?PAPER?MONEY?are?available? from?the?secretary? for?$8?
postpaid.?Send?changes?of?address,?inquiries?concerning??? non??? ????
delivery??? and??? requests??? for??? additional?copies?of?this?issue?to?
the?secretary.?
MANUSCRIPTS?
Manuscripts?????not?????under??????consideration??????elsewhere?and?
publications? for? review?should?be?sent? to? the?editor.?Accepted?
manuscripts? will? be? published? as? soon? as? possible,? however?
publication? in? a? specific? issue? cannot? be?guaranteed.?Opinions?
expressed? by? authors? do? not?necessarily? reflect?those? of? the?
SPMC.???Manuscripts?should?be? submitted? in?WORD? format? via?
email?(smcbb@sbcglobal.net)? or? by? sending?memory?stick/disk?
to? the? editor.? Scans? should? be? grayscale? or? color? JPEGs? at?
300?dpi.?Color? illustrations?may?be?changed?to?grayscale?at? the?
discretion? of? the? editor.? Do? not? send? items? of? value.?
Manuscripts?are? submitted?with?copyright?release?of?the?author?
to? the? editor? for? duplication? and? printing?as?needed.?
ADVERTISING?
All?advertising?on?space?available?basis.?Copy/correspondence?
should?be?sent?to?editor.?
All?advertising?is?pay?in?advance.??Ads?are?on?a??good?faith??
basis.? Terms?are??Until?Forbid.??
Ads? are? Run? of? Press? (ROP)? unless? accepted? on? a? premium?
contract?basis.?Limited?premium?space/rates?available.?
To?keep?rates?to?a?minimum,?all?advertising?must?be?prepaid?
according?to?the?schedule?below.??In?exceptional?cases?where?
special? artwork? or? additional? production? is? required,? the?
advertiser? will?be?notified? and? billed?accordingly.? Rates? are?
not?commissionable;?proofs?are?not? supplied.? SPMC? does?not?
endorse?any?company,?dealer,? or? auction? house.? Advertising?
Deadline:?Subject?to?space?availability,?copy?must?be?received?
by? the? editor? no? later? than? the? first? day? of? the? month?
preceding? the? cover?date? of? the? issue? (i.e.? Feb.? 1? for? the?
March/April? issue).?Camera?ready?art?or?electronic?ads? in?pdf?
format?are?required.?
ADVERTISING?RATES?
Editor Sez
Benny Bolin
Required?file??? submission?format??? is??? composite??? PDF?v1.3?
(Acrobat?4.0???compatible).???If???possible,?submitted?files?should?
conform?to?ISO?15930?1:?2001?PDF/X?1a?file?format?standard.?
Non?? standard,? application,? or? native? file? formats? are? not?
acceptable.?Page? size:?must? conform?to?specified?publication?
trim? size.? Page? bleed:? must? extend?minimum? 1/8?? beyond?
trim?for?page?head,?foot,?and?front.? Safety?margin:? type? and?
other? non?bleed? content?must? clear? trim?by?minimum?1/2?.??
Advertising?c o p y ? shall?be?restricted?to?paper?currency,?allied?
numismatic?material,?publications,???and???related???accessories.???
The?SPMC? does? not? guarantee?advertisements,? but? accepts?
copy? in?good?faith,? reserving? the?right? to? reject?objectionable?
or? inappropriate? material? or? edit? ? ? copy.? The? ? ? ? ? SPMC??
assumes????? no????? financial?????? responsibility?for? typographical?
errors? in? ads? but? agrees? to? reprint? that?portion?of?an?ad? in?
which?a?typographical?error?occurs.?
Benny
Space?
Full?color?covers?
1?Time?
$1500?
3?Times?
$2600?
6?Times
$4900
B&W?covers? 500? 1400? 2500
Full?page?color? 500? 1500? 3000
Full?page?B&W? 360? 1000? 1800
Half?page?B&W? 180? 500? 900
Quarter?page?B&W? 90? 250? 450
Eighth?page?B&W? 45? 125? 225
Dog Days Were Dogged This Year
Yes, in Big D, we were fortunate enough to not break the
record for the hottest summer of record, just made it to #2!
Over 40 days of over 100 days and all 31 days in July were over
100. We are now seeing some respite with lower temps (98 or
so) and some rain. Soon it will be over! the whole country
seems to have crazy weather this summer. Hope you all stayed
safe.
Summer shows seemed to be a hit. I unfortunately was not
able to attend any but reports were that Summer FUN, ANA,
BRNA, etc were all good shows and the public is coming back
with a vengeance. The only downsides I have heard are some
lack of material and ?optimistic? pricing. But it is good to get
back to the show circuit to see old friends, make new
acquaintances and overall enjoy the commaraderie that shows
bring. I hope you all will make plans now to attend the FUN
?23 in early January. The SPMC will be having our normal
IPMS activities of old, including the breakfast, Tom Bain raffle
and award presentations.
Speaking of awards, please go to the SPMC website,
SPMC.org and vote on the literary awards and reward our fine
authors for their diligence and hard work.
This is a very special issue of PM. It introduces the Shiva-
Huntoon Encyclopedia of U. S. National Bank Notes. This is a
monumental work that will benefit collectors for years to
come. This encyclopedia covers every aspect of U.S. national
bank notes issued from 1863 to 1935. It contains over 1,500
pages in 144 chapters, and is designed to be a dynamic work in
progress. It is truly a monumental work and is enjoyable and
informative for all paper collectors, not just those into
nationals. I only have one national--a South Carolina to go
with my collection of that state and I really enjoyed going
through this work. No, it did not convert this fractional guy to
nationals but, well, maybe..... The SPMC thanks Peter and
Andrew for allowing us to be a part of this project. It is simply
incredible. There is a link to the book on the website. Go to it
and enjoy.
308
The Society of Paper Money
Collectors was organized in 1961 and
incorporated in 1964 as a non-profit
organization under the laws of the
District of Columbia. It is
affiliated with the ANA. The
Annual Meeting of the SPMC is
held in June at the International
Paper Money Show. Information
about the SPMC, including the
by-laws and activities can be
found at our website--
www.spmc.org. The SPMC does
not does not endorse any dealer,
company or auction house.
MEMBERSHIP?REGULAR and
LIFE. Applicants must be at least 18
years of age and of good moral
character. Members of the ANA or
other recognized numismatic
societies are eligible for membership.
Other applicants should be sponsored
by an SPMC member or provide
suitable references.
MEMBERSHIP?JUNIOR.
Applicants for Junior membership
must be from 12 to 17 years of age
and of good moral character. A parent
or guardian must sign their
application. Junior membership
numbers will be preceded by the letter
?j? which will be removed upon
notification to the secretary that the
member has reached 18 years of age.
Junior members are not eligible to
hold office or vote.
DUES?Annual dues are $39. Dues
for members in Canada and Mexico
are $45. Dues for members in all
other countries are $60. Life
membership?payable in installments
within one year is $800 for U.S.; $900
for Canada and Mexico and $1000
for all other countries. The Society
no longer issues annual membership
cards but paid up members may
request one from the membership
director with an SASE.
Memberships for all members who
joined the Society prior to January
2010 are on a calendar year basis
with renewals due each December.
Memberships for those who joined
since January 2010 are on an annual
basis beginning and ending the
month joined. All renewals are due
before the expiration date, which can
be found on the label of Paper
Money. Renewals may be done via
the Society website www.spmc.org
or by check/money order sent to the
secretary.
WELCOME TO OUR NEW MEMBERS!
BY FRANK CLARK
SPMC MEMBERSHIP DIRECTOR
NEW MEMBERS 07/05/2022
15445 Nick Hamze, Website
15446 Cody Quintana, Website
15447 Larry Schuffman, Frank Clark
15448 Justin McClureWebsite
15449 Bob Pearson, Frank Clark
15450 Lyndra Spor, Website
15451 William Ripley, Website
REINSTATEMENTS
None
LIFE MEMBERSHIPS
None
NEW MEMBERS 08/05/2022
15452 Joseph Smith, Website
15453 Bryan Harrison, Don Kelly
15454 Clifford Cooper, Website
15455 Robert Anderson, Frank Clark
15456 Mark Borckardt, Website
15457 Douglas Doonan, Website
15458 Ronald Pettie, Website
15459 Bob Reed, Robert Calderman
15460 Jonathan Kukk, ANA Ad
15461 Robert Laird, Whitman Pub.
15462 Stan Clark, Website
15463 Josh Colon, Website
15464 John Salviani, Robert Calderman
15465 David Dixon, Website
15466 Ray Oshinski, Website
15467 Mark Ellingson, Website
15468 Timothy Anderson, Rbt Calderman
15469 Bryan Kastleman, ANA Ad
15470 Josephine Ellsworth, Webiste
REINSTATEMENTS
None
LIFE MEMBERSHIPS
None
Dues Remittal Process
Send dues directly to
Robert Moon
SPMC Treasurer
104 Chipping Ct
Greenwood, SC 29649
Refer to your mailing label for when
your dues are due.
You may also pay your dues online at
www.spmc.org.
SPMC.org * Paper Money * Sep/Oct 2022 * Whole Number 341
309
The Huntoon-Shiva Encyclopedia of U. S. National Bank Notes
It is with excitement that Andrew Shiva announces the release of the Encyclopedia of U. S. National
Bank Notes published jointly by his National Currency Foundation and the Society of Paper Money
Collectors.
The encyclopedia is huge, currently containing some 1,500 pages, 1,400 illustrations and 210 tables
divided into 144 chapters organized into 17 topical sections.
The encyclopedia is too large and would be too costly to publish in print form so it is being made
available in digital form through both the National Currency Foundation and Society of Paper Money
websites.
Both the NCF and SPMC have educational commitments to disseminate information that promotes
the research and collecting of paper money; thus, publication of the encyclopedia affords a natural
collaboration that furthers this objective for both organizations. Preparation of the encyclopedia has been
largely sponsored by the NCF and details of maintaining it on line have been assumed by the SPMC. It is
presented free of charge as a service to not only numismatists but the public at large.
The encyclopedia covers every aspect of national bank notes from why they originated during the
Civil war to why they were phased out 72 years later. As for the notes themselves, an explanation is
provided for why there were different series and backs. The protocols are explained that governed how
every other design element on the notes functioned and evolved over time. Much of this was dictated by
Congressional legislation, the rest by decisions made by Treasury officials as the national bank note era
unfolded.
The encyclopedia represents a significant part of the life work of U. S. currency researcher Peter
Huntoon, who has been writing about national bank notes since 1966. Over the intervening decades, he has
collaborated with the leading national bank note researchers and collectors to coauthor this treatise.
The core of most of the encyclopedia represents original research that Huntoon and his colleagues
have conducted using primary Treasury documents now preserved in the National Archives and at the
Bureau of Engraving and Printing. A major resource that they used were the certified proofs lifted from the
printing plates that were used to print national bank notes now housed in the National Numismatic
Collection in the Smithsonian Institution.
A significant fraction of the information in the encyclopedia builds on material already published
elsewhere, primarily in the SPMC journal Paper Money. However, much has never been released before.
All of it has been reworked, updated and corrected based on the most recent research available. One major
value of the encyclopedia is that it conveniently assembles all of this material in one place.
The arrangement of the subject matter into chapters within topical sections allows for the addition
of new chapters as they are written. Equally significant is that by making it available digitally, updates and
corrections can be made in real time as new information and insights are developed and mistakes?even
typos? are discovered. To this end, a version date is provided at the bottom of the first page of each chapter.
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The encyclopedia is designed to be a dynamic work in progress.
This link will take you to the encyclopedia.
https://content.spmc.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_of_U.S._National_Bank_Notes
Click on ?Search the Table of Contents, read or download chapters?
Click on any chapter of interest to read or down load it.
A few chapters have internal hot links to large tables or photo files.
A link can also be found on the SPMC.org website page.
Original series
Series 1875
Series 1882
Brown Back
1902 Red Seal
1929 Small
Size
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In The Beginning?.
by Wendell Wolka
Most collectors have a fairly vague idea of how National Bank Notes came into being. The nation was at war,
needed to develop a stable national approach to banks of issue and set up national banks to replace the existing state
banks of issue that had served the nation?s needs since independence. End of story; nothing else to see here; move
along.
With a bit more digging, and a chance encounter with research done by Richard T. Erb some fifty years ago, the
story is far more intriguing and interesting than one might imagine. For starters, the federal legislation that ultimately
became known as the National Bank Act, whose foundations have traditionally been attributed to the 1838 New York
banking legislation, was, in fact, heavily influenced by the 1845 Ohio banking legislation that created the State Bank
of Ohio and the state?s so-called ?Independent Banks.?
But first, let?s pick up the story in late 1861?
By then it had become obvious that the Civil War was not going to be a short war and was not going to be an
inexpensive war either. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase, former Governor and United States Senator from
Ohio was faced with the prospect of needing to sell ever increasing amounts of bonds to
keep the war effort moving forward. Continuing Union defeats on the battlefield had not
helped this effort at all and Chase finally came up with a concept to address the issues. He
would create a class of ?national banks? whose circulation would be secured wholly by
United States Bonds. This would create a huge new market for the sale of bonds. As an
added benefit, these bonds could be paid for with the new federal ?greenbacks? which
would help keep a lid on the amount of currency in circulation and therefore inflation. The
concept of using common designs for each denomination for all national bank notes was
also factored into Chase?s thinking. His experience with Ohio banks during his terms as
Governor and Senator was that common or very similar designs were used for all branches
of the State Bank of Ohio and for the other Ohio state-chartered banks of issue as well.
Once the basic planks of the plan were in place, Chase went looking for a salesman for the plan in the halls of
Congress. His first choice was Representative Elbridge G. Spaulding of New York. Spaulding had spearheaded the
drive to create Legal Tender notes in 1862 and also wrote up a bill to create national banks
but soon abandoned his support for the latter, feeling that simply issuing more Legal
Tender notes to fund the war effort was more expedient. Chase then turned to
Congressman Samuel Hooper of Massachusetts who was ineffectual in two efforts to get
the bill through the House Ways and Means Committee during the course of 1862-63.
Chase now enlisted another Ohioan, Senator John Sherman, brother of highly regarded
Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, who rammed the 1863 national bank
legislation through the Senate. The bill made it through the House Ways and Means
Committee and passed on a subsequent floor vote. President Lincoln signed the bill into
law on February 25, 1863. Why was the third time the charm? The staggering Union
Most of the national bank legislation of
1863 found its roots in the 1845 Ohio
legislation creating the State Bank of Ohio
and other state banks. All of the branches
issuing this denomination in the 1850s-60s
shared a common design. Most branches
became national banks beginning in 1863.
Salmon Chase
John Sherman
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defeat at Fredericksburg in mid-December, 1862 had provided vivid proof that the war was going to be a long one
and Chase made it very clear to all who would listen that the financial situation faced by the Treasury Department
could ultimately lead to defeat if the national bank legislation was not passed. In short, a no vote would be courting
national disaster.
The antebellum New York banking legislation has usually been given credit for being the source of the banking
principles embraced by this new legislation. But research done in 1973 by Richard T. Erb, Acting Deputy Comptroller
and Licensing Manager in the Comptroller of the Currency?s Office, substantially rebuts that claim. Erb made side-
by-side comparisons between the New York, Ohio, and federal legislation and came to a clear conclusion. By in
large, the federal law was largely based on the 1845 Ohio legislation that created the State Bank of Ohio branch
network and the state?s Independent Banks.??
The federal legislation contained 43 sections. Of these, seventeen sections are not even mentioned or addressed
in the New York legislation while only six sections from that legislation are included verbatim. Their inclusion was
probably the handiwork of Representative Spaulding when he produced a first draft of a national bank bill in 1862 as
Spaulding served as New York State Treasurer for a year before the war. By contrast, 22 sections from Ohio?s 1845
Banking Law were included in the federal legislation verbatim and another seven sections, only found in the Ohio
legislation, were also included covering the same areas in the same manner. In aggregate, 67% of the 1863 national
banking legislation is clearly of Ohio origin while only 14% can be tied to New York law. Given the Ohio
backgrounds of both Chase and Sherman, this should probably not be much of a surprise.
Another Midwesterner, Hugh McCulloch, was drafted by Chase to serve as the first Comptroller of the Currency
and tasked with turning the legislation into action. McCulloch was a well-respected banker from Indiana who had
served with distinction with the State Bank of Indiana and as President of the Bank of
the State of Indiana; two of the strongest bank networks in the nation. Ironically
McCulloch had come to Washington in 1862 to lobby against the new national banking
legislation, representing the Bank of the State of Indiana. His opposition was based on
the fact that the new federal law would effectively drive state banks of issue out of
business (which was essentially true.) McCulloch was not offered the Comptroller of
the Currency position until after the passage of the new 1863 national banking law, but
once in office, was unwavering and tireless in his efforts to get banks on board with the
National Bank concept.
McCulloch found the initial reception to this new class of banks by the nation?s existing commercial banks to
be ?underwhelming.? While western and middle state banks tended to be more open to converting to national banks,
the same could not be said for money center banks in the east. For example, after chartering three national banks in
New York City, it would be until February, 1864 before any more came on board. As McCulloch mentions in his
memoirs, Men and Measures of Half A Century, there were four common reasons for the hesitancy of many bankers.
? The new system was something completely different than anything that had been done before.
Therefore, the chances of success or failure were an unknown.
? Because United States bonds were to be the sole source of security for national bank circulations, the
banks would be ruined if the Union lost the war. This was a legitimate concern in early 1863, before the
victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg solidified Union prospects, and, of course, is exactly what happened
to Southern Banks in 1865.
Hugh McCulloch (right) appeared on
$100 issues of the Bank of the State of
Indiana, most of whose branches
became national banks.
Hugh McCulloch
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? National Banks would likely be exposed to increased federal oversight and regulations.
? Banks would be required to change their names.
This was a showstopper with a large number of state banks who had worked for years to make their
name a strong and recognizable brand and marketing tool. Chase?s original intent was to simply number all
of the national banks in any given location based on when their charter numbers were assigned. So, if there
were four applying banks in, say, Evansville, IN, the banks would be titled as the First, Second, Third, and
Fourth National Banks of Evansville. Not many bankers, particularly in big cities, wanted to go from maybe
The Bank of the Republic to The Eleventh National Bank.
Hugh McCulloch used his background as a well-known and nationally respected state bank officer to his
advantage in addressing these concerns. Responding to the first concern, he told wary bankers that the probability of
success for national banks was quite high because the capital to start each national bank was real and actually paid
in unlike many state banks. The security for each national bank comprised solely United States bonds with a 10%
margin and notes of any failed national banks would be promptly redeemed by the United States Treasury. Finally,
all national banks would be regularly audited.
Next McCulloch reminded prospective bankers that if the Union lost the war, it would not make any difference
what bonds were being held to secure their circulations. The banks? futures were tied to the Union cause whether they
were state or national banks. Most bankers had to agree with this pragmatic observation.
McCulloch argued that federal regulation would probably not be significantly greater or different than most
banks were dealing with on the state level by 1863 and his Indiana banking experience gave credibility to his
observation. He also pointed out that national banks, as a class of bank that encompassed the entire nation, would
surely have more lobbying impact in Washington than they had as individual state banks.
The final sticking point required all of McCulloch?s persuasive skills to resolve. Chase was initially adamant
that the banks would be numbered as described above. After an extended bit of wrangling, McCulloch finally got
Chase to agree to a compromise whereby the word National had to appear someplace in the bank title. So, for
example, the Bank of Commerce could become the National Bank of Commerce or the Merchants and Planters Bank
could take the name Merchants and Planters National Bank. The sole exception to this was the Bank of North America
in Philadelphia. Because of its stature as the first bank chartered in the United States by Congress in 1781, it was
allowed to become a national bank without changing its name or adding National to its title. The bank?s officers had
argued that the bank?s name was granted by Congress as part of the original charter and should therefore be
grandfathered in.
Even with all of McCulloch?s handholding and reasoning, things were still a slow go in terms of conversions,
and in early 1865, Congress provided the coup de grace by adding a provision to the Amendatory Act of March 3,
1865 (Section 6) which stated:
?And be it further enacted, That every national banking association, State bank, or state banking association,
shall pay a tax of ten per centum on the amount of notes of any person, State bank, or State banking association, used
for circulation and paid out by them after the first day of August, eighteen hundred and sixty-six and such tax shall
be assessed and paid in such manner as shall be prescribed by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.?
This 10% tax, which was part of the federal tax revenue rather than bank legislation, was the stick that finally
got the foot-draggers moving since it essentially wiped out the profitability of issuing state bank notes. There were
all sorts of other taxes levied on banks, but this was the crowning blow that brought the era of note-issuing state banks
to a close. Interestingly, it appears that this provision has never been repealed.
So, there you have it. America?s national banks, still prevalent on the American scene even today, improbably
owe their existence to three men from the Midwest; Salmon Chase, John Sherman, and Hugh McCulloch. Gentlemen,
we salute you for a job well done!
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Serial Numbering the Series of 1929
National Bank Notes &
Origin of Type 2 Numbers
PURPOSE
This chapter will explain how the Series of 1929 national bank notes were serial numbered and
why the numbering system was changed to the type 2 variety in 1933.
It is appropriate to explain the special cases when B suffix letters were used on type 1 sheets, and
when B prefix letters were used on type 2 notes in this chapter.
Two situations found in the issuance data for the individual banks are explained; specifically, the
shipment of partial sheets and gaps in the serial number sequences.
SERIAL NUMBERING
Series of 1929 national bank notes were serial numbered and sealed in 6-subject sheet form. Two
distinctly different serial numbering systems were used on the Series of 1929. The first, called type 1,
involved sheet numbers wherein all the notes bore the same number. The numbers had a suffix letter, and
the prefix varied from A to F depending on the position of the note on the 6-subject sheet.
The type 2 serials were note numbers ordered consecutively down the sheet with a prefix, but no
suffix letter. In addition, a brown charter number was overprinted next to each serial number adjacent to
the central portrait.
Three serial numbering conventions were common to both the type 1 and 2 issues. Serial numbering
started at 1 for each different denomination for each bank. Serial numbering started over when bank titles
were changed. However, serial numbering did not start over when bank signatures changed.
The delivery of uncut sheets to bankers was an established tradition dating from long before the
Bureau of Engraving and Printing came into existence. Sheets were convenient when bankers had to hand
sign their notes, but that convenience vanished once the signatures were printed.
A second inherited tradition was that of using the same serial number on all the notes on a given
sheet. Different plate letters were used to distinguish between like subjects on the sheet.
Sheet numbering of national bank notes originated with the bank note companies in 1863 and was
passed forward to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in 1875. The tradition of issuing the notes in sheet
form and using the same serials on all the subjects on a sheet was carried forward during the conversion to
small size Series of 1929 type 1 nationals, but with a small twist.
Figure 1. A note from the last sheet of $10s issued by the bank that was
obviously saved by a banker.
The Paper
Column
Peter Huntoon
Lee Lofthus
James Simek
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The source for the 6-subject sheets
was 12-subject plates whereon the subjects
were lettered A through L. Once the sheets
were cut in half, the G through L plate letters
on right halves served no purpose. Instead,
prefix letters A through F in the serial
numbers were used to indicate the position
of the notes on the half sheets regardless of
which half of the 12-subject sheet was being
numbered. The plate letters were ignored.
This is a wonderful example of
human inertia. Everyone simply kept
moving in the same direction, creating
whatever convolution was necessary to stay
the course.
The problem with adopting the type
1 sheet serial numbering style was that those
who handled and issued the sheets found
themselves locked into an archaic format
that quickly forced them to do their
accounting in units of six notes, instead of
individual notes.
Initially, in 1929, the Comptroller?s
clerks would receive notification from the
National Bank Redemption Agency that
some dollar amount of notes had been
redeemed for a given bank, and the clerks
would issue notes, which commonly
involved cutting notes from the sheets to
make up the correct total. This led to
cumbersome entries in the ledgers and
greatly complicated the rectification of the
accounts.
In short order, the Comptroller
requested that the National Bank
Redemption Agency certify redemptions in
6-note multiples so that the Comptroller?s
office could issue whole sheets to the banks.
This complicated the bookkeeping in the
Redemption Agency, which added to their
costs and forced them to hold odd numbers
of notes for varying periods at the expense
of expeditiously processing the all the notes
on behalf of the issuing banks.
Figure 2. Type 1 sheet where the serial
numbers are sheet numbers. Notice that all
the notes have the same serial number, and
their positions in the sheet are revealed by the
prefix letters in the serial numbers.
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ORIGIN OF TYPE 2 NUMBERING
The following discussion on the conversion to type 2 numbering is synthesized from memos and
letters in the Bureau of the Public Debt files (various dates), supplemented by correspondence in the central
correspondence files of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (1913-1939), both of which are in the
National Archives.
At first, the primary incentive to convert to the type 2 numbering style was annoyance on the part
of bankers that they still had to cut the notes from their sheets. Needed were notes numbered in numerical
order that could be separated and packaged like other currency.
Requests for deliveries in note form from bankers across the country were reaching all the agencies
involved with the national bank issues. Important was a lobbying effort in late March, 1930, by a Mr.
Mountjoy of the American Bankers Association requesting that serious consideration be given to the matter
(Broughton, Mar 23, 1930).
By 1930 the agency people already were converging on the idea of delivering the notes to the banks
in 100-note packages. There were proposals for the Comptroller?s office to purchase cutting machines so
operatives there could cut the sheets before shipping them to the banks. An alternative proposal was for the
Comptroller to return the 4.5 million sheets in his inventory to the Bureau to have them cut and packaged
over there.
However, the problem of multiple notes with the same serial number on the type 1 sheets loomed
large in the deliberations for change. The problem was that the repetitious serials would confounded
bookkeeping after the notes were separated because like numbers would cause confusion in packaging the
notes and the accounting for them.
The agency people were facing another problem that was even worse. From the outset of the 1929
issues, the Redemption Agency was receiving mutilated notes where the bank information was completely
washed off making identification by bank of issue difficult to impossible. However, sorters often could read
the serial numbers because the brown ink penetrated more deeply into the paper than the black ink used to
overprint the bank information. Furthermore, if a badly eroded note was sent in for redemption, the core of
the note surrounding the portrait usually was intact, whereas the borders containing the black charter
numbers might be totally missing.
The plan quickly evolved that if new numbering blocks had to be purchased to allow for consecutive
numbering down the sheet, they could also be designed to add charter numbers adjacent to the respective
sides of the portrait. The advantage of the extra charter numbers was that they would be printed with the
deeper penetrating brown ink and they would be placed in the critical core of the note.
Figure 3. This is the very first type 2 $50 that was printed. The number 1 type
2 sheets for all five denominations for this new Chicago bank were part of a
printing order for $600,000 placed with the Bureau of Engraving and Printing
on May 31, 1933. This order happened to contain the first request for type 2
$50s and $100s. They were delivered from the BEP to the Comptroller on June
24th.
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Thus, the type 2 concept would kill two birds with one stone: (1) consecutively number the notes,
and (2) add two charter numbers to facilitate identification of mutilated notes.
The idea for including the two charter numbers in brown came from William S. Broughton,
Commissioner of the Public Debt Service in a memo to Bureau Director Alvin W. Hall dated April 2, 1930.
Broughton suggested that the charter and serial numbers be stacked on the respective sides of the notes.
Putting the numbers in-line with the charter numbers adjacent to the portrait was the suggestion of
Director Hall in a response dated April 22, 1930. Hall was concerned about potential crowding and overlap
of design elements on the notes if the numbers were stacked. Besides, having the numbering discs for the
two numbers on the same axle within the numbering blocks was far easier to accommodate mechanically.
The fact is that the discussions leading to the adoption of the type 2 numbering style progressively
focused more on the additional brown charter numbers than on providing pre-cut notes for the bankers!
Leading the charge for the additional brown charter numbers was the Redemption Agency staff.
The agency people dithered even though there was consensus on the merits of the type 2 concept
in early 1930, so implementation stalled. But time marched on.
On April 28, 1931, Mr. Broughton signaled the frustration of Treasury officials when he wrote to
BEP Director Hall: ?Something should be done about National bank notes. Everyone has agreed (1) that
the notes should be separated before shipment, and (2) that additional means of identifying the bank of issue
should be provided. * * * Moreover, the Secretary has promised the banks in due course that the notes will
be delivered separated. * * * Several plans have been considered and at least one has been approved but
misunderstandings or complications have invariably arisen which have prevented the proposal being carried
out? (Broughton, Apr 28, 1931).
Broughton?s memo was designed to light a fire under the agencies, the BEP in particular. Instead
the issue smoldered and weakly at that.
An interagency Currency Committee was formed and recommended on July 18, 1932, that the BEP
be authorized to purchase new numbering blocks to print the type 2 notes. The committee went on to explain
?It has been the purpose of the Department to furnish the banks with separated notes but the difficulties are
so great that it is deemed wise to give no further consideration to the matter at this time? (Broughton and
others, Jul 18, 1932).
Broughton, a member of the Currency Committee, wrote lamely two days later to Assistant
Secretary of the Treasury James H. Douglas Jr. (Broughton, Jul 20, 1932):
National bank notes are produced as job orders. It is not practicable to
separate and exactly collate National bank notes at the Bureau. It would
add many times to the cost. It is possible to separate the notes without
undue expense, but not to collate them. If a change from sheet to separated
notes were made the Comptroller=s vault equipment would be wholly
obsolete. A complete change in vault control and shipping procedure
would be necessary at considerable expense and reduced security. The
present is considered a bad time to make a change, and so the proposal to
separate notes before shipment is being abandoned for the time-being.
Figure 4. $50 and $100 type 2
notes are highly prized because
they were issued in small
quantities by a limited number
of banks. Only 288 of these
$100s were printed for and
issued by this bank. Photo
courtesy of William Herzog.
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The recommendations of the committee were approved August 1, 1932 by Douglas. All the agency
people agreed that the addition of the extra charter numbers printed in the deeper penetrating brown ink
next to the portraits was sufficient justification on its own merits to make the change.
Deputy Comptroller of the Currency Frank Awalt sent a memo to Broughton on November 21,
1932 stating ?. . . it is requested that each denomination for each bank start with A000001 as it will greatly
facilitate the keeping of records of this office (Awalt, Nov 21, 1932).? Orders were then placed for the new
numbering blocks.
The first order for type 2 notes was requisition number 1099 sent from the Comptroller?s office to
the Bureau of Engraving and Printing on May 13, 1933 (CofC, 1929-1935). The instructions on how to set
up the presses to do this work were finalized in the serial numbering section on May 24, 1933 (BEP,
undated). The first of the type 2 sheets was sent from the Bureau to the Comptroller?s office on May 27,
1933, with $5s for Demopolis, Alabama (10035), $10s for Denver, Colorado (1651) and $20s for
Williamstown, New Jersey (7265) leading the pack. The last type 1 sheets were sent two days later (BEP,
1924-1935).
Separation of the notes never did occur. Delays were caused by deciding whether the Bureau of
Engraving and Printing or the Comptroller?s office should separate the notes. The favored option was to
have the Bureau do the cutting.
If the Bureau was to separate and handle the notes, suitable vault space with furnishings and
equipment had to be arranged, additional counters had to be hired, and new procedures had to be developed
for distributing the notes directly to banks without the notes having to pass through the Comptroller?s office.
Also, it was desirable to wait until the stocks of type 1 sheets could be depleted because handling them in
separated form was undesirable for accounting purposes.
No progress was made on cutting the sheets by the time the series was phased out in 1935. The
long-sought desire of bankers to receive their notes in individual form had been a topic of discussion since
the inception of the series, yet the only progress in that direction was to start numbering the notes
consecutively down the sheets beginning belatedly in 1933.
The fact is, the bankers lost out because it was inconvenient for the agencies to separate the notes.
Besides, there remained large numbers of type 1 sheets in the Comptroller?s inventory that would be a pain
Figure 6. The numbering
wheels for the brown charter
numbers turned on the same
axle as the adjacent serial
number. In this case, the wrong
charter number was dialed in
for $5 serials 1501-3264,
received at the Comptroller?s
office September 23, 1933.
Figure 5. This Mount Olive
bank had the highest charter
number to appear on a type 2
$100. The entire issuance from
the bank consisted of 250 of
these 100s.
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to deal with thanks to the repetitious sheet serial numbers on them.
There was momentary consideration of simultaneously shipping type 1 notes to the banks in sheet
form and the type 2s in cut form, but this idea was quickly dropped because the bankers receiving the type
1s would feel discriminated against and probably would howl loudly.
Ironically, there was a bookkeeping benefit to both the Comptroller?s office and the Redemption
Agency attending the use of the type 2 sheets. No longer was the Redemption Agency bound to certifying
redemptions in 6-note increments. Instead they could report and clear all redemptions exactly as they came
through, and the Comptroller?s clerks could issue new notes in serial number order to those exact amounts
by cutting the necessary numbers of notes from sheets if need be.
The practice of cutting one or more notes from sheets to make up deliveries to offset redemptions
closed out the type 2 era and explains why the final type 2 serials issued to many banks are not evenly
divisible by 6.
The irony in all of this is that the primary incentive to adopt type 2 numbering was so that individual
notes could be delivered at great convenience to the bankers. The actual reason that type 2 numbering was
adopted was to take advantage of the duplicate charter numbers that were applied incidentally in the process
in order to facilitate identification of mutilated notes turned in for redemption.
Banker constituency: strikeout! Agency personnel: homerun!
B-SUFFIX TYPE 1, B-PREFIX TYPE 2 SERIAL NUMBERS
A bank had to issue 999,999 sheets of one denomination, for a total of 5,999,994 notes, before B-
suffix serial numbers could appear on a type 1 note. The Chase National Bank of the City of New York
(2370) was the only bank in the country to achieve this distinction. The feat was realized in their $5 issues
in 1933.
The first B-suffix notes arrived at the Comptroller?s office in a printing delivered March 9,
consisting of sheets 1 through 11,140. The shipment to the bank containing the first B-suffix notes went
out December 11 in a group numbered 905141A through 651B. Fortunately, someone at the bank saved the
top notes off the 999999A-1B rollover sheets.
The last type 1 $5 printed for the Chase bank was F057756B and it was issued, yielding a total
issuance of 6,346,530 $5 type 1 notes having a face value of $31,732,650!
Getting to the B
prefix in the type 2 issues was
six times easier. Only 999,996
notes of the same
denomination had to be
consumed first. Bank of
America National Trust and
Savings Association, San
Francisco (13044), was the
only bank to earn this
distinction, and it was done
with their $5s. However,
reaching the B-prefix was just
part of the story.
The printing
containing the B000001 note
Figure 7. Sensational rollover
pair of notes from A- to B-suffix
serials numbers, a feat attained
only by The Chase National
Bank of the City of New York.
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was enormous, consisting of notes A371997 through C074856. It arrived at the Comptroller?s office on
November 24, 1933. The A999996-B000001 pair was shipped to the bank December 7, 1934, in a group
numbered A917635-B000938.
The clock ran out on the Series of 1929 before the C-prefix notes were reached. Consequently, the
highest serial sent to the bank was B172602. By then the bank had received $5,862,990 in type 2 $5s.
The highest serial numbers printed on the two types of nationals were as follows according to a
journal maintained by someone in the numbering division (BEP, undated). The dates listed are when the
last were numbered. The serials followed by # were issued.
Type 1:
$5 A-F057756B# Chase National Bank of New York
$10 A-F750580A# Chase National Bank of New York
$20 A-F129054A# Bank of America NT&SA, San Francisco
$50 A-F011178A# Bank of America NT&SA, San Francisco
$100 A-F008554A Union Planters NB&TC of Memphis
Type 2:
$5 C074856 Bank of America NT&SA, San Francisco Nov 11, 1933
$10 A762420# Bank of America NT&SA, San Francisco Apr 27, 1934
$20 A435444# Bank of America NT&SA, San Francisco Nov 3, 1934
$50 A064548 Bank of America NT&SA, San Francisco Nov 3, 1934
$100 A043032 Bank of America NT&SA, San Francisco Nov 3, 1934
PART SHEETS IN BANK SHIPMENTS
The published listings of issued Series of 1929 serial numbers contain numerous entries where part
sheets of type 1 and type 2 sheets were sent to banks. Early during the type 1 issues, it was the practice of
the clerks who were making up shipments to cut sheets in order to round up the dollar totals to exactly
offset the value of redemptions. This produced a bookkeeping headache, so the practice ceased in short
order, probably before 1930, and from then on, the redemption agency reported redemptions in quantities
that exactly equaled values that could be covered by full sheets. In this way, the Comptroller?s clerks
Figure 8. Bank of America
National Trust and Savings
Association, San Francisco,
was the only bank to issue type
2 notes with a B prefix.
Figure 9. There is no photo of
the unique $20 Series of 1929
Type 2 note with serial
A000193 from this bank with
president M. D. Pond?s
signature. We have no idea if it
was saved. A photo of this $10
with Rhoades? signature will
have to do! Photo courtesy of
Gerome Walton.
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avoided the bother of cutting sheets and the laborious ledger work needed to keep track of them.
The advantage of type 2 serial numbers was that they were numbered down the sheet. If a sheet had
to be cut to make a shipment, it caused no bookkeeping headache, so the practice of cutting sheets resumed
during the type 2 era.
There is one tale involving the type 2 issues for The First National Bank of Lyons, Nebraska (6221),
that involved cutting sheets to make up shipments that is so good, it has to be told. The facts here were
discovered many years ago when Gerome Walton asked Huntoon to identify the changeover serial numbers
between signature combinations for several Nebraska banks.
A new president was appointed for the Lyons bank in February 1935. Specifically, M. D. Pond
replaced Herbert Rhoades. A new type 2 printing consisting of $10 and $20 sheets was made with Pond's
signature.
However, the Comptroller?s clerks continued to send notes to the bank with Rhoades? signature
until stocks of them ran out. Thus, Pond=s sheets waited in inventory.
As fate would have it, the very last shipment to the bank to offset redemptions before the Series of
1929 was discontinued involved an amount that required one $20 note be cut from the next sheet.
You guessed it, that single $20 was the only 1929 note shipped to the bank with president Pond?s
signature! The note was $20 serial A000193 sent April 29, 1935, along with some sheets with Rhoades?
signature. No $10s with Pond's signature were sent.
Of all the notes sent to the bank, that one was the most likely to have been saved by Pond. I wonder
if he saved it! It has not been reported. Probably it is hanging on the wall of his grandson?s office. Or maybe
his great grandson liberated it in order to go out and buy some weed!
SERIAL NUMBER GAPS IN BANK SHIPMENTS
It was the policy of the Comptroller?s office to consume stocks of sheets having obsolete signatures
before notes with new signatures were shipped. The same was true for new titles.
Despite this policy, gaps consisting of sizable groups of unissued serial numbers have been
recognized for 44 different banks in the 1929 issues. The gaps usually affected all the denominations being
issued by the bank at the time.
The gaps occurred in one of two ways. It is clear that bankers could request that unissued sheets
with obsolete titles or signatures be canceled because this occasionally happened. Such cancellations
explain most of the gaps. The few others represent canceled misprint runs discovered after the sheets had
been delivered to the Comptroller of the Currency.
Not all the canceled runs of obsolete signatures have been identified. There are two reasons they
were missed.
First, many signature changes happened to occur between the type 1 and 2 issues. Canceled sheets
from the ends of type 1 printings can be detected only by determining if, in fact, the last type 1 sheets
printed were actually issued. This requires an examination of the appropriate National Currency and Bond
Ledger for every affected bank in the National Archives, a detail that wasn?t consistently undertaken.
Second, and even more obscure, is that in many cases, Louis Van Belkum, the compiler of the
issued national bank note serial numbers, calculated the last serial numbers issued by using summary dollar
totals from the last ledger page, rather than examining the ledger page that showed the actual high serial
numbers issued. He would thus miss the fact that there was a group of canceled sheets, and inadvertently
calculate ending serial numbers that were correspondingly too low. Occasionally we find such missed gaps
when collectors report out of range serial numbers.
Three examples of gaps resulting from misprinted orders follow.
Jamaica Errors
The Series of 1929 type 1 printings for The Jamaica National Bank of New York (12550) were
jinxed by a succession of two consecutive typesetting errors.
The first involved a stopgap 6-subject electrotype plate made by the Government Printing Office
came with Jamaica in the F-position misspelled Jamacia. This typo was made by a BEP linotype operator
as he was making the type for a 6-subject form that was used by the GPO as a mold for the plate. In the
meantime, Barnhart Brothers & Spindler, the Chicago contractors awarded the contract for providing sets
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of six 1-subject logotype
plates, had received their
order for the bank?s plates,
but that order omitted the
?of? from the bank title. In
due course, the BBS
logotypes arrived.
The first printing for
the bank was made from the
GPO plate and some sheets
were sent to the bank with the
misspelling in the F-position
before it was discovered. The
remainder of that printing
was canceled, and followed
by printings from the finally
arrived BBS logotypes. The
omitted ?of? wasn?t detected
until a new plate was ordered
by the bankers to reflect a
new president in 1933. Table
1 summarizes the salient
facts surrounding this
comedy of mistakes.
The discovery of the
Jamacia misspelling and
cancelation of the remaining
stock of those sheets in the
Comptroller?s inventory
explains the gap in the issued
serial numbers. This gap is
particularly interesting
because the issuance of the
error sheets was terminated
mid-sheet. At the time the
Comptroller?s clerks cut
sheets to make up desired
dollar amounts in their
Figure 10. Three notes from
The Jamaica National Bank of
New York. Top: John
Hickman?s photocopy of the
F-note with misspelled
Jamacia from the GPO plate.
Middle: note from the BBS
logotypes with omitted of in
the title. Bottom: note from a
new set of BBS logotypes made
in 1933 with the correct title
when the president=s signature
was changed.
Table 1. Receipts of key serial numbers for The Jamaica
National Bank of New York (12550) at the Comptroller
of the Currency's office.
Data from Comptroller of the Currency, 1863-1935.
Date Den Serials Delivery
Type 1:
6-subject GRO plate containing misspelling in the F-position
Sep 7, 1929 5 1-208 1st type 1 delivery
10 1-406
1st set of six 1-subject BBS logotypes missing "of"
Nov 25, 1929 5 209-410 2nd type 1 delivery
10 407-824
Dec 2, 1932 5 4021-4544 last type 1 delivery
10 4371-5196
Type 2:
2nd set of six 1-subject BBS logotypes with new president
Aug 19, 1933 5 1-4956 1st type 2 delivery
10 1-6792
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shipments.
Louis Van Belkum had recorded
the gap from the National Currency and
Bond Ledgers, but, of course, we had no
idea what had caused it. John Hickman
provided the vital clue decades ago. One
day he excitedly showed me a photocopy
someone had sent him of the bottom four
notes from the $10 number 2 sheet from the
first printing sporting the misspelled
Jamacia in the F-position. The National
Currency and Bond Ledgers revealed that
the Comptroller?s clerks sent the unissued
error sheets to the redemption division for
cancellation as soon as the error was
discovered
Bartlett, Texas, Misspelling
The first two printing of Series of
1929 notes for The First National Bank of
Bartlett, Texas (5422), had the town misspelled Barlett.
This spectacular error, the first to be reported from the bank, came in a lot of Texas notes consigned
to Heritage Auctions and offered through their January 5-8, 2011 Fun sale. Heritage cataloguer Frank Clark,
spotted the error.
He sent a scan of it to Huntoon, not knowing that Huntoon had discovered the error in Treasury
records several years ago, already had researched it, and been looking for a specimen ever since.
Huntoon first ran into the misspelling in a Bureau of Engraving and Printing billing ledger for
Series of 1929 overprinting plates. The entry for The First National Bank of Bartlett was written during
September 1929, and shows
the spelling as Barlett. It
appears that the misspelling
was transmitted to the BEP
on the order form that they
received from the
Comptroller of the Currency.
The September
entry is followed by an
undated second that states
?new plate[s] made without
charge to bank.?
Both sets of plates
were made by Barnhart
Brothers & Spindler in
Chicago.
The rest of the story
appears in the National
Currency and Bond Ledgers.
The first delivery of 1929
sheets for the bank arrived at
the Comptroller?s office on
September 25, 1929, and
contained $10 sheets 1-616 Figure 11. Bartlett is misspelled in the top note of this pair.
Table 1, continued.
Dates when key notes were shipped to the bank.
Type 1:
6-subject GRO plate containing misspelling in the F-position
Sep 17, 1929 10 A1-B4
Sep 27, 1929 5 A1-B14
Oct 5, 1929 10 C4-D7
Oct 15, 1929 10 E7-B14
Oct 30, 1929 10 C14-B19
(rest of first printing canceled)
1st set of six 1-subject BBS logotypes missing "of"
Nov 25, 1929 5 209-
Nov 26, 1929 10 407-
Aug 4, 1933 10 -5196
Aug 11, 1933 5 -4544
Type 2:
2nd set of six 1-subj ct BBS logotypes with new president
Aug 19, 1933 5 1-
Aug 19, 1933 10 1-
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and $20s 1-210.
Error sheets began to be shipped to the bank beginning with $10s on October 4, followed by $20s
on October 12. These were replacements for worn large size notes that had been redeemed. Periodic
shipments followed.
The cryptic notation ?printed wrong? appears in the column showing shipments to the bank, so it
is clear that the clerks spotted the misspelling.
A second printing arrived at the Comptroller?s office four and a half months later on February 8,
1930. Ironically, it was printed from the plates with the misspelling and included $10s 617-1234 and $20s
211-422. Obviously, an order for more sheets had been sent to the BEP, but failed to mention the
misspelling.
The last shipment of sheets with the misspelling was sent to the bank February 4, 1930, four days
before the second printing arrived.
The arrival of the second printing stirred the Comptroller?s office into remedial action. They
ordered a third printing with the proper spelling.
It arrived at the Comptroller?s office on February 26th, and contained sheets $10s 1235-1836 and
$20s 423-832, so now the clerks finally could stop shipping errors! The first shipment to the bank without
the misspelling went out that same day.
The unissued sheets with the misspelling were canceled May 12, 1930, and included serials $10
460-1234 and $20 116-422. Notice that the cancellations involved the last sheets in the first printing and
all the sheets from the second printing. This is another case where a typographical error on the layout used
to make Series of 1929 overprinting plates resulted in canceled sheets and resulting gaps in issued serial
numbers.
The part of this tale that is interesting is that even though the error was spotted in September 1929,
the Comptroller?s office continued to ship the misprints until a corrected printing arrived. Misprints, when
found, always caused some type of response. Procedures varied, but a primary consideration involved
weighing the degree of the problem against an inconvenient wait imposed on the bankers. Delays were
obviously considered worse than the misspelling in the Bartlett case!
A key step in making the Series of 1929 logotype plates that were produced by Barnhart Brothers
& Spindler involved a photo etching process. This required a photo positive of the overprint. A photo
positive of Bartlett was spliced into the original positive in place of Barlett. All else on the layout was left
as it was. The new set of plates was made from the corrected positive.
Another misspelling of a town is flagged in the 1929 billing ledger. This occurred on the plates
made for The First National Bank of Maquoketa, Iowa, charter 999. The July 1929 billing entry states
?misspelled Maquoleta.? In this case, the BEP ordered a new set of overprinting plates before the first
printing. Notes from the first printing came out correctly as Maquoketa, including most notably the $20
E000001A note that appeared in a CAA 1/97 sale.
Indianapolis Preposition Error
A general policy had been adopted at the Comptroller?s office not to accepted titles that duplicated
one used previously in the same town. They could be avoided by substituting in or at for of in titles, or by
dropping those prepositions altogether.
This resulted in a glitch for an Indianapolis bank. The American National Bank at Indianapolis was
the third in a string of related banks. The first was The American National Bank (5672), chartered in 1901,
which was liquidated and reorganized as The Fletcher American National Bank (9829) in 1910. The
Fletcher American was in turn liquidated January 24, 1934, and succeeded by The American National Bank
at Indianapolis (13759), which had been organized August 19, 1933. In the case of charter 13759, at was
substituted for of
The officers of the new bank arranged for a deposit of $1 million worth of bonds to secure a like
circulation on February 28, 1934. A set of Series of 1929 overprinting logotypes was made, and the first
deliveries from them arrived at the Comptroller?s office in October 1933. A subsequent printing was
delivered in February 1934. $1 million was shipped to the bank March 1st from the Comptroller?s office.
What everyone failed to notice was that the title on the first two printings used the traditional of
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instead of at! The error was
spotted once the $1 million
worth of errors arrived at the
bank. The notes were
desperately needed, so they
were pressed rapidly into
circulation.
In the meantime, the
unissued remainders in the
Comptroller?s office from the
second printing were canceled
March 15th. A third shipment
with the corrected title arrived
at the Comptroller?s office
March 26-27, 1934. Another
followed in September. Consequently, there were gaps in the issued serial number ranges for all five type
2 denominations between the two titles.
Regular shipments to the bank of error-free notes from the new plates were used to offset
redemptions of worn notes from circulation beginning April 12, 1934. In this interesting case, $286,770
worth of error-free notes were sent to the bank, in contrast to a million dollars? worth of the errors.
Consequently, the errors represented about three and a half times the dollar value of the non-errors! The
fact is that the error-free notes proved to be fairly difficult to find.
MATCHED CHARTER AND SERIAL NUMBERS
Occasionally someone finds a note where the serial number matches the charter number. Just that
happened to Dan Freeland with the circulated note from Bay City, Michigan, shown here. Lucky find!
PARTING COMMENTS
The great advantage to bankers with the adoption of small size national bank notes was that the
notes would arrive in totally completed form; specifically, they already would bear the bank signatures.
However, in reality the conversion to small size got off on the wrong foot because the notes were still
Figure 13. Notice that the
charter number and serial
number match on this Bay City,
Michigan, note.
.
Figure 12. The official title for
this Indianapolis bank utilized
the preposition at, not of. The
first two printings used of by
mistake. Notes with the error
are more easily obtained than
the corrected title.
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printed in sheets where every note on the sheet had the same number, a tradition inherited from the large
note era, which in turn had been inherited from the numbering of obsolete bank currency before that by the
bank note companies. As before, the notes were sent to the bankers in sheet form when what the bankers
really wanted was separated notes. These comprised the type 1 varieties printed from 1929 to 1933.
All relevant Treasury officials undertook deliberations to remedy this shortcoming and the concept
of consecutively numbered notes gained serious traction. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing could
readily handle consecutively numbered notes because that is how all Treasury and Federal Reserve bank
currency was being numbered. The Bureau was using small size numbering presses that not only applied
the numbers consecutively down the sheet, but also separated and collated the notes in consecutive order.
Consecutively numbering down the sheets was adopted for nationals in 1933 giving rise to the type
2 varieties. However, the primary internal motivation for moving in this direction was that the new
numbering heads were designed to also apply the bank charter numbers next to the serial numbers, yielding
two additional charter numbers that were printed using brown ink. That ink penetrated the paper better than
the black ink used for the two black charter numbers along the outside edges of the notes that were part of
the bank overprint. The reality was that the National Bank Redemption Agency was facing two serious
problems. Often the black overprints on worn notes had washed off making it difficult or impossible to
assign those redeemed notes to the proper bank. On other severely worn notes, the ends were eroded to the
point that the black charter numbers along the edges were missing. The more durable brown charter
numbers bracketing the portraits at the centers of the notes solved both problems!
Once they began to produce the type 2 notes, they continued to send them to the banks in uncut
form. The decision turned on convenience. The Comptroller?s vault was set up to handle sheets, not
individual notes. Besides, there was a huge inventory of type 1 sheets still in stock. In order to convert to
notes, everything involved with handling including the design of the vault itself would have to be changed.
Not the least of the problems was that the type 1 sheets in inventory would have to be separated into
individual notes, which would bear duplicate numbers that would create an accounting headache.
The solution was simply to defer dealing with the problem. If they waited long enough, the stock
of all the type 1 sheets would finally be consumed. Also, on the horizon was the happy prospect that serious
minds in the Treasury Department were working on doing away with the nuisance national currency
altogether. Waiting things out deferred costly intervention! And that is how the type 2 era played out.
There was one benefit to the type 2 issues from the perspective of the Comptroller?s office.
Bookkeeping could be simplified because replacements for worn notes redeemed from circulation could be
handled when necessary by cutting sheets to supply exact balances rather than juggling redemption balances
to match the dollar value of full sheets as was the practice going into the type 2 era.
As for the bankers, whose howls fueled the move to consecutively number the notes, they were
stuck with having to deal with annoying sheets right up to the end!
REFERENCES CITED AND SOURCES OF DATA
Awalt, F. G., Deputy Comptroller of the Currency, Nov 21, 1932, Memorandum to William S. Broughton, Commissioner of the
Public Debt Service, requesting that Series of 1929 type 2 serial numbering start at A000001: Bureau of the Public Debt,
Series K Currency, Record Group 53, U. S. National Archives, College Park, MD.
Broughton, William S., Commissioner of the Public Debt Service, Mar 23, 1930, Memorandum to Alvin W. Hall, Director, Bureau
of Engraving and Printing, pertaining to a request from Mr. Mountjoy of the American Bankers Association to consider
separating Series of 1929 national bank notes prior to delivery to the banks: Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Central
Correspondence Files, Record Group 318, U. S. National Archives, College Park, MD.
Broughton, William S., Commissioner of the Public Debt Service, Apr 2, 1930, Memorandum to Alvin W. Hall, Director, Bureau
of Engraving and Printing, recommending the addition of two brown charter numbers to Series of 1929 overprints: Bureau
of Engraving and Printing, Central Correspondence Files, Record Group 318, U. S. National Archives, College Park,
MD.
Broughton, William S., Commissioner of the Public Debt Service, Apr 28, 1931, Letter to Alvin W. Hall, Director, Bureau of
Engraving and Printing, addressing dismay over agency delays in implementing the adoption of Series of 1929 type 2
serial numbering and separating the notes for delivery: Bureau of the Public Debt, Series K Currency, Record Group 53,
U. S. National Archives, College Park, MD.
Broughton, William S, Commissioner of the Public Debt Service, Jul 20, 1932, Letter to James H. Douglas Jr., Assistant Secretary
of the Treasury, advising him of the status of proposals to adopt Series of 1929 type 2 serial numbering and the separation
of the notes prior to delivery: Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Central Correspondence Files, Record Group 318, U. S.
National Archives, College Park, MD.
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Broughton, William S, A. W. Hall, W. H. Moran and M. E. Slidee, Jul 18, 1932, Currency Committee recommendations with
regard to adoption of Series of 1929 type 2 serial numbering and separation of notes prior to delivery: Bureau of
Engraving and Printing, Central Correspondence Files, Record Group 318, U. S. National Archives, College Park, MD.
Bureau of Engraving and Printing, 1913-1939, Bureau of Engraving and Printing Central Correspondence Files: Record Group
318, U. S. National Archives, College Park, MD.
Bureau of Engraving and Printing, 1924-1935, Schedules of the delivery of national bank currency: Record Group 318, U. S.
National Archives, College Park, MD.
Bureau of Engraving and Printing, 1929-1935, Ledger showing billing dates for national bank overprinting plates: Record Group
318, U. S. National Archives, College Park, MD.
Bureau of Engraving and Printing, undated, Serial numbering division journal: Bureau of Engraving and Printing Historical
Resource Center, Washington, DC.
Bureau of the Public Debt, various dates, Series K Currency: Record Group 53, U. S. National Archives, College Park, MD.
Comptroller of the Currency, 1863-1935, National currency and bond ledgers: Record Group 101, U. S. National Archives, College
Park, MD.
Comptroller of the Currency, 1929-1935, Requests to print currency: Bureau of Engraving and Printing Historical Resource Center,
Washington, DC.
Duncan, George W., Superintendent of the Surface Printing Division, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, October 14, 1930,
Memorandum to the Assistant Director of Production explaining how make-up replacement sheets were made for the
Series of 1929 national bank notes: Bureau of Engraving and Printing Central Correspondence Files: Record Group 318,
U. S. National Archives, College Park, MD.
Hall, Alvin W., Director, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Apr 22, 1930, Letter to William Broughton, Commissioner of the
Public Debt Service, outlining the advantages of placing duplicate charter numbers on Series of 1929 type 2 national
bank notes in-line with the serial numbers: Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Central Correspondence Files, Record
Group 318, U. S. National Archives, College Park, MD.
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Ransom at the Border
When The Marfa National Bank helped rescue
U.S. airmen held for ransom
Lee Lofthus
Figure 1. Vice President H. M. Fennell of The Marfa National Bank, Marfa, Texas, aided authorities on
Monday, August 18, 1919, when Mexican ?Villista? bandits demanded a ransom for two captured American
airmen. Fennell holds a package containing $15,000 in cash. At center is Major C. C. Smith, Commanding 2nd
Air Squadron, 8th Cavalry, with Elmer Donnell of the American Red Cross at right. Library of Congress
photograph LCN 2017669979.
Headlines were booming with controversies over Southwest Border security, human
trafficking, illegal aliens, drug smuggling, kidnappings, and gun running. If this sounds like
today?s paper, it was over 100 years ago.
U.S./Mexico Hostilities 1913-1920
Strife on the U.S./Mexico border was widespread from 1913 to 1920. The Mexican
revolution had sowed internal upheaval and violence that spilled across the border into the United
States, especially after Mexican general Pancho Villa was ousted by his former revolutionary
comrades. Hunted by his old brothers-in-arms and abandoned by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson,
Villa became a guerrilla, at one point crossing into the U.S. and attacking the 13th Calvary on the
way to seize horses and supplies at the town of Columbus, New Mexico.
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The town was burned, 18 Americans died, and reports said between 65 to 80 ?Villista?s?
died. In March 1916, the U.S. Army sent General John J. ?Black Jack? Pershing into Mexico to
find the bandit and pressure the Mexican government to subdue Villa. The presence of the U.S.
forces on Mexican soil understandably fueled Mexican anger, and when the expedition failed to
corner Villa after months of chase, the U.S. forces withdrew in February 1917.
The violence continued, with illegal drug smuggling, alien smuggling, kidnappings, and
general violence as gangs of Mexican bandits roved the border areas. Bandits would cross into the
U.S. when supplies were needed, raiding ranches and rustling cattle. Violent armed conflict was
not unusual, with a particularly large battle occurring between roughly 600 bandits and 800 U.S.
soldiers near Nogales, Arizona, in August 1918.
Figure 2. The 12th Aero Squadron, one of several squadrons, flew surveillance missions and
conducted liaison operations with the U.S. Calvary on the United States/Mexico border. Army
Border Air patrol operations continued from 1919 to 1921. United States Army - Air Service, U.S.
Army photograph January 1, 1920.
The U.S. Army Border Air Patrol
In June 1919, a large force of Villistas was on the move towards Cuidad Juarez, Mexico,
near El Paso, Texas. The U.S. government placed military units nearby on the American side of
the border. Over 1,600 of Villa?s guerrilla?s attacked Juarez on the night of June 14, 1919, with
stray fire coming into the U.S, killing two and wounding several others. The Army sent 3,600
troops into Mexico to disperse the Villista force and then returned to base.
As a result of this incident, the Army moved Air Service units to the border for surveillance
and patrol duty, eventually numbering over five dozen airplanes and 600 officers and men. In July
1919, three squadrons were organized and stationed at Kelly Field outside San Antonio. Flights
soon began from several air fields ? literally, hastily prepared fields and pastures ? including Marfa
field.
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The Marfa Ransom Incident
On August 10, 1919, two Americans got lost while on a routine patrol flight along the Rio
Grande in the Big Bend area of Texas. During their flight, Lts. Harold G. Peterson, pilot, and Paul
H. Davis, observer-gunner from Marfa Field, Texas, mistook the Conches River for the Rio Grande
and flew several miles into Mexico before having engine trouble. They picked what they believed
was a safe spot on the ?American? side of the river and crash landed. They buried the machine
guns and ammunition to keep them out of the hands of bandits, and began the trek back to what
they thought would be the U.S. Cavalry post at Candelaria, Texas.
When the two men did not return to base, a search was begun. Planes were unsuccessful in
their search, although at one point the flyers saw a plane overhead but could not attract its attention.
The search continued for a week, when Capt. Leonard F. Matlack, commanding Troop K, 8th
Cavalry, at Candelaria, received word Peterson and Davis were being held for ransom. From here
the story is told verbatim from the ?The United States Army Border Air Patrol:?
The flyers had been taken prisoner on Wednesday, 13 August by a Villista desperado named
Jesus Renteria. The bandit sent the ransom note to a rancher at Candelaria, along with telegrams
which he forced the airmen to write to their fathers and the Secretary of War, the Commanding
General of the Southern Department, and the commanding officer of U.S. forces in the Big Bend
District. Renteria demanded $15,000 not later than Monday, 18 August, or the two Americans
would be killed.
The War Department authorized payment of the ransom, but there remained the matter of getting
$15,000 in cash for delivery before the deadline. Ranchers in the area quickly subscribed the full
amount, which came from the Marfa National Bank. Negotiation through intermediaries resulted
in a plan for Captain Matlack to cross the border Monday night with half of the ransom money
for the release of one of the Americans. The meeting took place on schedule, and within forty-
five minutes Matlack came back with Lieutenant Peterson.
Matlack then took the remaining $7,500 to get Lieutenant Davis. On the way to the rendezvous,
he overheard two of Renteria?s men talking about killing him and Davis as soon as the rest of the
ransom money was paid. At the rendezvous, Matlack pulled a gun, told the Mexicans to tell
Renteria to ?go to hell,? and rode off with Davis and the money. Avoiding the ambush, Matlack
and Davis safely crossed into the United States.
The bandit Renteria and some of
his men were spotted two days
later by Air Patrol planes flying in
Mexican territory, and he was
reported killed as one of the
planes strafed the bandits. The
search for other bandits from his
gang was suspended on August 23
after the Mexican government
protested the invasion of its
territory.
Figure 3: The U.S. Army 8th Machine Gun Cavalry in action
on the Mexican border, Villa campaign, 1916. LCN 96509207.
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Figure 4. Marfa, Texas, 1918. The Marfa National Bank is at left. Note the entryway where
bank vice president H. M. Fennell was standing in Figure 1 as he left with the $15,000
ransom package. Postcard by Arnold?s Art Studio, image courtesy Marfa Public Library.
The Marfa National Bank
The rescue of the two Army Air Border Patrol flyers was an Army operation, but the funds
came from local ranchers around Marfa and Presidio County. This was remote west Texas hill
country, only 60 miles from the border with Mexico. The Marfa National Bank was the sole
national bank in a town of roughly 3,500 people, and it was also the only national bank in the entire
county. It was ready to help it neighbors and the military.
Longtime cashier Harold M. Fennell had been recently promoted to vice president of the
bank, and Fennell was on hand when the ransom plan came into action. Fennell had been cashier
of the bank from 1908 to 1918, and lived in Marfa with his wife and two daughters. Fennell helped
get the $15,000 cash together and provided it to the Army officers. As seen in Figure 1, Fennell,
at 43 years old, was a tall lean Texan who looked as much the part of a lawman as banker.
We don?t know the cash composition of the notes involved with the ransom, but The Marfa
National Bank did issue national bank notes, and Fennell?s cashier signature did appear on notes
for many years given his decade-plus as cashier. See Figure 5.
The Marfa National Bank was open from 1907 through the close of the national bank note
era in 1935. The bank maintained a fairly consistent circulation of $70,000 or thereabouts for most
of its existence. The Marfa National Bank issued Series 1902 Red Seals, Date Backs, and Plain
Backs in the $10 and $20 denominations, and Series 1929 small size notes in the same
denominations.
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Figure 5. 1902 $10 Date Back note showing the signature of cashier H. M. Fennell.
Many surviving Marfa NB large size notes have no signatures left on them, so this Date
Back is a nice exception. Image courtesy Lyn Knight Auction Archives.
Postscript
The Marfa ransom incident was not the only occasion Army Air Border Patrol personnel
got lost and/or captured in Mexico, to the repeated irritation of both governments. In one awful
episode, two pilots were murdered by bandits after being downed in Mexico near Baja California.
But concerns over the Mexican diplomatic protests, coupled with a diminishment of bandit
problems affecting the U.S. side of the border, eventually allowed the patrol flights to taper off.
The flights ended in June 1921 when the prescient Brig. General Billy Mitchell had other priorities
for the Army Air Service and assigned the personnel and planes back east to train on how to attack
naval vessels at sea.
The Army Air Service returned to Marfa prior to World War II, with an expanded Marfa
Field serving as a training ground for thousands of U.S. pilots during the war.
Numismatically, a Marfa national bank note with Fennell?s signature is a tie back to a time
when small town national banks and their bankers served the everyday routines of life, but also
met some extraordinary circumstances.
Sources
Air Force Historical Research Agency website: http://www.afhra.af.mil/.
Air Patrol background and ransom story from United States Army Border Air Patrol wiki at
https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/United_States_Army_Border_Air_Patrol
Kelly, Don C. National Bank Notes, A Guide with Prices, 4th Ed. 2004. The Paper Money Institute, Oxford,
OH.
Pollock, Andrew. Tabular Guide to United States National Bank Notes, based on Comptroller of the
Currency annual reports of condition, 1863-1935. (2018).
University of North Texas Libraries. Marfa, Texas, photograph 1918. University of North
Texas; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth40210/: accessed July 2, 2022), Univ. of
North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; credit Marfa Public
Library.
United States Census, 1910 and 1920. U.S. Government. Washington, D.C.
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Unreported Nebraska National Bank Discovery Note
?well?sort of!
by Matt Hansen
Figure 1. The First National Bank of
Wilber, Nebraska, 4/26/1886. History
Nebraska, photo [RG2491-11-32].
The discovery of a note from a previously unreported national bank from any state sends ripples
through our community. But when that rare survivor is only a fragment of its former self, does it still count as a
discovery note?
This question had to be contemplated by Gerome Walton. From 1965 until his death in 2021,
Gerome worked tirelessly to amass the most comprehensive collection of Nebraska nationals by charter and
title ever attempted. Nebraska had 349 note-issuing national banks, of which 64 remain unreported. Or should
that number be 63? Gerome obtained notes from 260 of the 285 banks that are currently reported.
Gerome acquired a Nebraska seal that had been snipped from a Series of 1882 $5 brown back
[Figure 2]. Tantalizingly visible along the right side of its face are remnants of the first three digits of a
charter number; specifically, 299. Nebraska had two national banks that fit. 2991 was assigned to The First
National Bank of Wilber and 2994 goes with The First National Bank of Fairbury. Both were $5 brown back
issuers. Wilber is unreported. Plenty of notes are known from Fairbury.
The astonishing thing is that after the seal was chopped from the note, the scavenger carefully
trimmed the excess selvage from around the seal but didn?t throw the trimming away! It holds the fourth digit,
revealing that the note was from The First National Bank of Wilber [Figures 3 and 4].
Wilber is located in Saline County in the southeast part of the state, being a community founded by
Czech immigrants. The bank was organized June 20, 1883, and chartered July 3rd. It was capitalized at
$50,000.00 and the bankers elected to issue only $5s. The bank was liquidated March 22, 1892, and
converted into The State Bank of Wilber. That bank nationalized in 1902 to become Charter 6415 The
National Bank of Wilber.
The bankers utilized only 2,129 sheets of $5s during the less than 9-year existence of their bank. The
building that housed the bank on the southwest corner of W. 3rd and S. Wilson Streets in Wilber is long gone
and was replaced by another building now occupied by a branch of First State Bank Nebraska.
Does the fragment constitute a discovery note? Would you be as proud to own it as the sole
surviving ?note? from the bank as did Gerome? It grades at least extra fine!
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Figure 5. Face of the
seal fragment overlain
on the proof from The
First National Bank of
Wilber, Nebraska.
National Numismatic
Collection, Smithsonian
Institution photo.
Sources of Data
Bureau of Engraving and Printing. 1875-1929. Certified proofs of national bank note face and back plates: National Numismatic
Collections. Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington D.C.
Library of Congress. Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Wilber, Saline County, Nebraska. November 1892. Sanborn-Perris Map
Company, New York, NY. Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, Washington, D.C.
Walton, Gerome. A History of Nebraska Banking and Paper Money. Lincoln, NE: Centennial Press (1978). Wilber
Republican. 4/7/1892, 6/2/1892, and 8/29/1902. Wilber, NE. www.Newspapers.com
Figure 3. Selvage trimmed from around the Nebraska seal. Figure 2. Nebraska seal cut from a Series of 1882 $5 brown back?
Figure 4. Reconstructed fragment
revealing the full charter number.
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TAMPA PAPER MONEY EXPO
October 20 - 22, 2022
Tampa Fairgrounds - Florida Center Building
Public Hours: Thursday, Oct 20: 10AM - 6PM / Friday, Oct
21: 10AM - 6PM
Saturday, Oct 22: 10AM - 4PM
$5 Adult Admission - Covers All
Three Days
Dealer Setup on Wednesday, Oct 19: 2PM - 7PM
Early Bird Badges available for $125.
For Bourse Application, please contact Jim Fitzgerald 817-
688-6994 or JFitzShows@Gmail.com
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1862-1863 Legal Tender
Classification Chart
Revised
Purpose
We published a comprehensive classification guide for the 1862-3 legal tender notes in the March-
April 2019 issue of Paper Money. The purpose of this update is to include two newly recognized varieties
involving overprinted instead of engraved signatures on the $1 and $2 notes and to revise selected data for
other entries in the chart provided in the earlier article.
Signing the 1862-3 LT Notes
We have identified two new signature varieties; specifically, overprinted signatures on the $1 and
$2 denominations tentatively assigned Friedberg numbers $1 16d and $2 41e. Consequently, it is
appropriate that we explain the evolution of how signatures were placed on the notes.
The following is a verbatim transcript of an item that appeared in the July, 1875, issue of the
Banker?s Magazine.
A writer in the Indianapolis Journal says: ?The law requires all notes, bonds and interest
coupons issued by the Government to bear the signature of the Treasurer. In former times, before
the invention of greenbacks, and when the bond issues of the Government were comparatively
insignificant, the Treasurer used to affix his personal signatures to them. When General Spinner
came into office in 1861 he still pursued this practice for awhile, and nearly killed himself in the
monotonous manual labor of writing his name. It soon became evident that the work was greater
than any man could do, and left him no time whatever for other more important duties. So when
the first issue of Government notes was made in the summer of 1861, a different arrangement
was made. These notes were receivable for customs duties, and being payable on demand were
called demand notes. The whole amount of them issued was $60,000,000. This is before the
Government began to print its own notes. These demand notes were engraved and printed in New
The Paper
Column
Peter Huntoon
Doug Murray
Figure 1. Pair of deputy hand-signed demand notes where the top note is the earlier variety with
handwritten ?for the? before the title of the officers, whereas ?for the? was engraved on the later notes.
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York, and sent to the Treasury Department at Washington to be signed by the Treasurer and
Register. As the theory still prevailed that they must be signed by hand, a force of about eighty
clerks was organized to do the work by deputy, one-half acting as Deputy Treasurers and the
other as Deputy Registers. At first the words ?for the? had to be written in, making the signature
read, ?John Jones, for the Treasurer,? or for the Register, as the case might be. Afterwards the
words ?for the? were engraved, and only the signature had to be written. The signing of the
$60,000,000 of demand notes occupied this force of eighty men about six months?from August,
1861, to February, 1862. Although the Government credit was good at that time, it was even then
sorely pressed for ready money to meet the heavy expenses of organizing and equipping the
Army. Thus the demand notes were called for faster than they could be signed, and it often
occurred that the whole force of clerks was kept at work till nearly midnight signing bills which
would be cut and trimmed early the next morning, and in some paymaster?s chest before night.
It happened to the writer to have charge of the work, and he well remembers the high degree of
gratification evidenced by the then Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Chase, on learning that the last
sheet of demand notes had been signed without the loss of a dollar. These were the last
Government notes signed by hand.?
The handling of signatures always presented a nuisance to all involved. The volume of the Federal
currency issues forced rapid innovation and those changes added interesting varieties to those first notes.
The top note on Figure 1 reveals that the deputy signers not only hand signed the notes, but due to
lack of foresight, they even were required to write ?for the? in front of the official?s titles.
In short order, as shown on the bottom note in Figure 1, the Treasury requested the bank note
companies to engrave ?for the? onto the plates. This halved the work of the deputy signers.
After the last of the demand notes were finished in early 1862, and the legal tender notes were on
their way, the officials in the Treasury Department sprang for a major innovation. They ordered the bank
note companies to overprint the Treasury official?s signatures on the legal tenders. See Figures 2 and 3.
Simultaneously, they also decided to have Treasury seals printed on the notes wherein the seals
became the monetizing instrument that turned the notes into money rather than the signatures of the
Treasury officials. Thus, the American Bank Note Company was commissioned to design and produce
seals, which were purchased by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
Figure 2. Pair of 1862-3 legal tender notes where the top note is the earlier variety with overprinted
Treasury signatures and the bottom has engraved signatures.
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The bank note companies provided uncut sheets complete with Treasury signatures to the Treasury,
and the seals were overprinted in the Treasury as a security safeguard. Then the Treasury cut the notes from
the sheets.
In due course, as the 1862-3 legal tender series wore on, another bright light went off. Treasury had
the bank note companies roll engraved facsimiles of the Treasury signatures onto the plates, which saved
an additional printing step. See Figure 2 and 3.
New Friedberg Numbers
The job of distinguishing between overprinted and engraved signatures is most difficult on the $1
and $2 1862-3 legal tender notes because the signatures are obscured by the green tint that underlies them.
Consequently, the varieties were not recognized. The result is that separate Friedberg numbers were not
assigned to the $1s and $2s whereas they were for the other denominations. Both were lumped under the
$1 Fr.16b and $2 Fr.41 labels.
The engraved signatures are readily distinguished from the overprinted signatures in a number of
ways. Most significant is that there are minor stylistic differences in the shapes of the punctuation marks
within Spinner?s signature and the shapes of various loops in both signatures. Chittenden?s engraved
signature exhibits a noticeably finer line weight than the overprinted signatures. Many of the overprinted
signatures appear a bit bolder and sometimes the tighter loops in Chittenden?s signature are partially filled
whereas the engraved signatures are more crisply formed.
The overprinted signatures wander quite a bit in the spaces provided for them when several of the
notes are compared whereas the engraved signatures generally occupy fairly fixed positions. However,
there is minor wandering of the engraved signatures as well, a finding that demonstrates that the signatures
Figure 3. Details of $1 and $2 1862-3 legal tender notes where the left images have overprinting Treasury
signatures and the right are engraved. Usually the overprinted signatures appear bolder and some of the loops
in the signatures are partially filled or totally filled. There are minor differences in the shapes of the dots
associated with Spinners signatures between the overprinted and engraved signatures.
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were added to the plates as a separated roll transfer after the generic face images had been laid in rather
than being engraved on the master die. The engraved signatures simply wander much less than the
overprinted signatures.
Fr.16b and Fr.41 will continue to represent the common engraved variety, and the new numbers
Fr.16d and Fr.41e, will be attached to the scarcer overprinted varieties.
The series number printed on the notes will help greatly to distinguish between the overprinted and
engraved varieties. The overprinted $1s are Series 166-170 and $2s series are 88-101 whereas the engraved
$1s are 170-174 and $2s 101-171. Only $1 series 170 and $2 101 will require careful analysis because the
engraved signatures were added to those plates while those series were being printed.
Doug Murray has calculated the number of each variety made using the timing of the change and
available serial number information spanning the change. Those data appear on the chart. The overprinted
varieties will prove to be far more difficult to find.
Using the Chart
The following sections identify, illustrate and in some cases explain the elements that vary on the
1862-3 legal tender notes in order to aid you in classifying the notes.
Obligations ? backs
Figure 4. First obligations on left, second on right. The distinction is that the first
provides for the exchange of the notes for U. S. bonds.
Figure 5. Variable elements labeled on a typical 1862-3 note. This is a Fr.95 note with March 3,
1863 act date, American & National bank note company imprints, March 10, 1863 plate date,
series = 18 New Series, and 30 JUNE 1857 patent date.
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Series Numbers
The serial numbering system used on these notes is coupled with the series. Each denomination
began with Series 1. The numbering heads used by the bank note companies had five number wheels so the
highest number they could print was 99999. However, they hand set 100000 to round out a series. They
then advanced the series and printed the next 100000 and so on.
In order to change the series on still serviceable plates, which was a number etched into the surface
of the plates, they burnish off the old number and etched in the next. Once a plate wore out, a duplicate
with the same plate position letters was made and the series etching sequence was continued.
They did not etch in a 1 for the first series of 100,000 notes in some cases. See $5 Fr.61, $20 124a,
$100 165, $500 183, 183a, $1000 186, 186a.
Bank Note Company Imprints
The contracts for engraving the master dies for the various denominations were spread among the
American and National bank note companies as follows: National $1, $2, $50, $100, American $5, $10,
$20, $500, $1000, so their respective imprints were placed on the dies.
However, a second imprint occurs on most notes, some being duplicates, others being the other
company. We have not found an official explanation for the second imprint or discerned a pattern that
explains every instance. We simply don?t understand how the imprint system worked.
Patent Dates
The green ink used to print the green tints on the faces of the notes were patented anti-counterfeiting
inks. The patent holders claimed the green couldn?t be removed without damaging the black intaglio
printing and the paper, which would prevent counterfeiters from obtaining a sharp photographic image of
the black overlay. The Treasury paid a royalty for the use of the inks, first for the Matthews and next for
the Eaton formulas; however, neither worked. The patented inks were then dropped from use.
The patent dates were incorporated into the designs of the intaglio plates used to print the green
tints. They were June 30, 1857 for Matthews and April 28, 1863 for Eaton. The locations of the dates varied
depending on denomination, but they are found free-standing under some part of the tint. They can be
difficult to see on well-circulated specimens. The Eaton ink is decidedly bluish.
Monograms
Corporate monograms were added to a few of the face plates, probably to reveal who printed them.
See ABC for $1 Fr.16a, 17a, 17b, 17c, 17d, $100 Fr.165 and N for $10 Fr.95b.
Figure 6. George Matthews? June 30, 1857, and Asahel K. Eaton?s April 28, 1863, patent dates on 1862 and
1863 Legal Tender Notes were for anti-photographic green inks used in the green underprint tints.
Figure 7. Bank
note company
monograms:
ABC on Fr.17a
(left) and N on
Fr.95b (right).
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Seals
Starburst on some $10s
The first six $10 1862-3 legal tender plates were altered demand note plates. They have no starburst
in the center of the lower border. Successive plates made exclusively for the legal tender issues incorporate
the starburst. This detail applies only to the $10 notes and is listed in the column labeled ?Special
Characteristics.?
Closing Statement
The 1862-3 legal tender notes are by far the most difficult to classify by Friedberg number by
collectors, dealers and auction cataloguers. The accompanying chart is designed to eliminate the
ambiguities associated with that job.
Acknowledgment
All photos are from the Heritage auction archives.
Sources Cited
Banker?s Magazine, July, 1875, Mr. Spinner?s signature: third series, vol. x, no. 1, p. 68.
Huntoon, Peter, and Doug Murray, Mar-Apr, 2019, 1862-3 Legal Tender classification chart: Paper Money, v. 58, p. 85-90.
Edmunds, George F., Mar. 3, 1869, United States Securities: Joint Select Committee on Retrenchment, 40th Congress, 3rd Session,
Senate Committee Report 273, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 436 p.
Copies of Chart
Those of you who work with the 1862-3 LTs will find it far more convenient to have your own copy of
the Classification Guide that you can enlarge for easy use. The original is an Excel spreadsheet. Contact
Huntoon by email and he will send a digital copy. peterhuntoon@outlook.com
Figure 8. The background behind the shield was solid on the first seal (left).
Figure 9. The bottom border of the $10s come without (top) and with (bottom) a starburst in the center.
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Classification guide for assigning Friedberg numbers to 1862 and 1863 Legal Tender Notes. Additions and updates to Huntoon and Murray (2019) appear in holdface.
Series No.
Fr. No. Act Plate Date Series Number Placement Imprints Monogram Seal Serial Numbers
$1 1862
17 Jul 11, 1862 Aug 1, 1862 1 left National-American none 1st seal on left serial
17d Jul 11, 1862 Aug 1, 1862 1 left National-American ABC 1st seal on left serial
17b Jul 11, 1862 Aug 1, 1862 1 left National-American ABC 2nd seal on left serial
17a Jul 11, 1862 Aug 1, 1862 1-166 left National-American ABC 2nd left serial on green counter
16d Jul 11, 1862 Aug 1, 1862 166-170 left National-National none 2nd left serial on green counter
16b Jul 11, 1862 Aug 1, 1862 170-174 left National-National none 2nd left serial on green counter
16 Jul 11, 1862 Aug 1, 1862 174-234 left National-National none 2nd left serial on green counter
17c Jul 11, 1862 Aug 1, 1862 199-204 left National-American ABC 2nd left serial on green counter
16a Jul 11, 1862 Aug 1, 1862 204-219 left National-National ABC 2nd left serial on green counter
16c Jul 11, 1862 Aug 1, 1862 235-284 right National-National none 2nd left serial on green counter
$2 1862
41b Jul 11, 1862 Aug 1, 1862 1 right American-National none 1st no face plate number left of portrait
41c Jul 11, 1862 Aug 1, 1862 1-2 right American-National none 2nd no face plate number left of portrait
41d Jul 11, 1862 Aug 1, 1862 1 right American-National none 2nd inverted no face plate number left of portrait
41a Jul 11, 1862 Aug 1, 1862 3-88 right American-National none 2nd face plate number left of portrait
41e Jul 11, 1862 Aug 1, 1862 88-101 right National-National none 2nd face plate number left of portrait
41 Jul 11, 1862 Aug 1, 1862 101-171 right National-National none 2nd face plate number left of portrait
$5 1862/1863
61 Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 no series none American none 1st one serial number
61a Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 2-59 upper left American none 1st one serial number
61b Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 59-70 upper left American none 2nd one serial number
61c Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 71-119 lower left American none 2nd one serial number
62 Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 New 1-23 lower right American-National none 2nd one serial number
63 Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 24-65 lower right American-National none 2nd one serial number
63a Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 65-75 lower right American-American none 2nd one serial number
63b Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 75-83 lower right American-American none 2nd two serial numbers
$10 1862/1863
93a Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 1 upper right American-Ptd by Nat none 1st upper right corner one serial number
93a-I Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 1 upper right American-Ptd by Nat none 1st upper right corner one serial number
93b Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 1-9 upper right American-Ptd by Nat none 1st right center one serial number
93c Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 1-25 upper right American-Ptd by Nat none 1st right center one serial number
93e Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 5-7 census upper right American-Ptd by Nat none 1st right center one serial number
93f Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 5 census upper right American-Ptd by Nat none 1st right center one serial number
93d Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 26-27 upper right American-Ptd by Nat none 1st right center one serial number
93 Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 28-63 upper right American-Ptd by Nat none 2nd right center one serial number
94 Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 New 1-15 upper right American-National none 2nd right center one serial number
95 Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 16-40 upper right American-National none 2nd right center one serial number
95c Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 40-44 upper right American-National none 2nd right center one serial number
95a Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 44-48 upper right American-American none 2nd right center one serial number
95b Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 48-56 upper right American-American N 2nd right center two serial numbers
$20 1862/1863
124a Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 no series none American none 1st one serial number
124b Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 2-12 top center American none 1st one serial number
124 Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 12-24 top center American none 2nd one serial number
125 Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 New 1-8 top center National-American none 2nd one serial number
126 Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 9-18 top center National-American none 2nd one serial number
126a Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 18-20 top center American none 2nd one serial number
126c Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 20-21 top center American none 2nd two serial numbers in line with each other
126b Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 21-28 top center American none 2nd two serial numbers, left in lower left corner
$50 1862/1863
148 Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 1-3 upper right National none 1st one serial number
148a Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 3-5 upper right National none 2nd one serial number
150 Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 1 upper right National none 2nd one serial number
150b Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 1-2 upper right National-American none 2nd one serial number
150a Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 2 upper right National-American none 2nd one serial number
$100 1862/1863
165 Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 no series none National ABC 1st one serial number
165b Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 2 lower right National none 1st one serial number
165a Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 2-3 lower right National none 2nd one serial number
167b Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 1 lower right National none 2nd one serial number
167 Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 1 lower right National-American none 2nd one serial number
167a Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 1-2 lower right National none 2nd two serial numbers
$500 1862/1863
183 Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 no series none American none 1st one serial number
183a Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 no series none American none 2nd one serial number
183b Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 New 1 left American-National none 2nd one serial number
183e Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1862 New 1 left American-National none 2nd one serial number
183c Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1862 New 1 left American none 2nd one serial number
183f Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 1 left American none 2nd one serial number
183d Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 1 left American none 2nd two serials with left in brackets with different font
$1000 1862/1863
186 Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 no series none American none 1st one serial number
186a Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 no series none American none 2nd one serial number
186b Feb 25, 1862 Mar 10, 1862 New no series lower left American-National none 2nd one serial number
186c Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1862 New no series lower left American-National none 2nd one serial number
186e-1 Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1862 New no series lower left American none 2nd one serial number
186d Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New no series & 2 lower left American none 2nd one serial number
186e Mar 3, 1863 Mar 10, 1863 New 2 lower left American none 2nd two serials with left in brackets with different font
Compiled by Peter Huntoon and Doug Murray, 2022. If you discover a new variety, send a 300 dpi color scan of both the face and back to peterhuntoon@outlook.com.
The entries for each denomination are arranged in approximate chronological order. The number of reported notes is listed only if there are fewer than 10 of them.
Fr. 149 & 166 listed in old catalogs were not printed
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Huntoon and Murray (2019) appear in boldface.
Green Underprinted Number
Treasury Signatures Patent Date Back Number Printed Special Characteristic Reported Fr. No.
$1 1862
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 5,000 est 4 17
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 7,000 est 6 17d
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 12,000 est 1 17b
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 16,512,000 est 17a
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 410,000 new Friedberg number 16d
engraved 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 400,000 16b
engraved none 2nd obligation 5,854,000 16
engraved none 2nd obligation 50,000 est with Fr.16 plates 17, 19, 20, 22, 24 17c
engraved none 2nd obligation 150,000 est with Fr.16 plates 17, 19, 20, 22, 24 16a
engraved none 2nd obligation 4,946,000 16c
$2 1862
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 10,000 est error - plate number omitted 6 41b
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 178,000 est error - plate number omitted 6 41c
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 12,000 est error - seal inverted & no plate no. 3 41d
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 8,511,160 est 41a
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 1,368,840 new Friedberg number 41e
engraved 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 6,950,000 41
$5 1862/1863
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 100,000 61
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 5,750,000 est 61a
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 1,150,000 est 61b
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 4,900,000 61c
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 2,300,000 62
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 4,132,764 63
overprinted none 2nd obligation 1,000,000 63a
engraved none 2nd obligation 867,236 63b
$10 1862/1863
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 60,000 est no starburst bottom 5 93a
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 20,000 est with Fr.93a starburst bottom 2 93a-I
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 120,000 est with Fr.93c no starburst bottom 93b
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 2,220,000 est starburst bottom 93c
overprinted none (error) 1st obligation 60,000 est with Fr.93b no starburst bottom 5 93e
overprinted none (error) 1st obligation 20,000 est with Fr.93c starburst bottom 3 93f
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 200,000 est starburst bottom 7 93d
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 3,600,000 est starburst bottom 93
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 1,500,000 starburst bottom 94
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 2,430,504 starburst bottom 95
overprinted April 28, 1863 2nd obligation 370,000 starburst bottom 95c
overprinted April 28, 1863 2nd obligation 400,000 starburst bottom 95a
engraved April 28, 1863 2nd obligation 800,496 starburst bottom 95b
$20 1862/1863
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 100,000 2 124a
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 1,050,000 est 124b
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 1,250,000 est 124
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 800,000 125
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 920,984 126
overprinted none 2nd obligation 225,000 126a
engraved none 2nd obligation 66,016 est error - left serial number was misplaced 9 126c
engraved none 2nd obligation 734,000 est 126b
$50 1862/1863
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 260,000 est 148
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 173,600 est 6 148a
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 32,000 150
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 70,504 1 150b
overprinted April 28, 1863 2nd obligation 65,000 150a
$100 1862/1863
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 100,000 1 165
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 35,000 est 2 165b
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 155,000 est 6 165a
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 24,000 2 167b
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 29,440 2 167
engraved 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 56,560 167a
$500 1862/1863
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 26,000 1 183
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 12,000 possibly printed 183a
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 5,000 possibly printed 183b
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 22,828 error - plate date should be Mar 10, 1863 183e
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 22,000 error - plate date should be Mar 10, 1863 3 183c
engraved none 2nd obligation 8,000 1 183f
engraved none 2nd obligation 20,000 1 183d
$1000 1862/1863
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 12,000 186
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 1st obligation 10,000 possibly printed 186a
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 2,500 possibly printed 186b
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 24,904 error - plate date should be Mar 10, 1863 1 186c
overprinted 30 JUNE 1857 2nd obligation 22,000 error - plate date should be Mar 10, 1863 186e-1
engraved none 2nd obligation 64,000 2 186d
engraved none 2nd obligation 20,000 1 186e
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Don Kelly Remembered
(August 18, 1933-June 23, 2022)
by Peter Huntoon
Don Kelly was a stalwart retail mail- order currency dealer for decades who
agilely moved where the action was. He was an early adopter of web-based internet
retail selling. In recent years he moved aggressively into foreign currency where he
found the pace and margins to be particularly attractive.
Don?s major contributions to currency collecting came in the form of price guides,
first his various editions of his national bank note catalog and more recently his
catalog of obsolete currency. Both were major undertakings. In the case of his
national bank catalog, he employed at least one of his sons to help with that arduous
typing endeavor.
Don was a popular and accomplished professor of physics at Miami
University in Oxford, Ohio, which also was his undergraduate alma mater. He
earned his advanced degrees at Yale. His tenure at Miami University spanned 33
years. He capitalized on his scientific expertise and teaching experience by authoring
a best-selling undergraduate physics text book.
He was a fit individual and in his younger years was an accomplished athlete
who competed in discus throwing.
He had a great sense of humor and a bit of panache. When he retired from his long stint at Miami, the story I
heard was that he rented a topless white chauffeur-driven limo at the end of the academic year, gathered up his
wife, both in regale attire, and paraded around the Miami campus and Oxford throwing waves like royalty to startled
folks along their route. If my memory serves me well, this farewell excursion also involved a bottle of champaign
and toasts.
Early on, he avidly collected Ohio national bank notes wherein his collection ranked among the most
comprehensive being formed. The national bug bit him hard and he dug into the history of the Ohio national banks
and bankers.
Being a quantitative scientist, he was one of the early compilers of national bank note census data. It was
natural that when John Hickman was looking for a successor to carry on his nation-wide census before his death
that he turned to Don to carry on that work. Don masterfully complied and in time during the early 2000s sold that
burdensome mantle to Andrew Shiva and his National Currency Foundation where it continues to grow. That census
now has well over a half million entries.
Don served as the curator at the William Higgins National Bank Note Museum for at least a couple of summers
before Larry Adams accepted those reigns. He enjoyed his time in that capacity in Okoboji, Iowa, because it
afforded him an opportunity to work on his national bank note catalog and the census he incorporated into it.
My dealings with Don primarily were in the realm of his national bank note census work. For years we
collaborated on compiling the data for Alaska, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming and the large size territorials.
In contrast, I could count the number of notes I bought from him on one hand. However, in the national bank
note game, as in all numismatics, when a rarity comes up, the big deal is to be on the receiving end of the phone
call announcing its discovery. The seller can place a good item with any number of people. I was a collector of
Arizona nationals and Don had a complete listing of my notes with his census so he knew what I had. He chanced
upon a Series of 1929 type 2 $20 from The First National Bank of Tempe, the smallest issuer of that variety in the
state. It was otherwise unknown and remains so to this day. Furthermore, he noticed that it was the only type 2 $20
from the state that I didn?t have. He averred that it had to be high on my want list. Not the biggest deal in history,
but I got that call. Sure, he extracted a pound of flesh in the form of a trade, but as I said, I got the call. You don?t forget
those.
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Don was a devoted family man of the first order. His wife Jane was a wonderful and supportive spouse. He
wanted his investment in his collection to benefit his four children and knew it was worth far more and would net
more in his hands while alive. Thus, as his children reached young adulthood and could best benefit from a financial
boost to launch their lives, he knew it was time to sell. This he did, splitting the proceeds into equal shares among
them, never looking back.
Don was a savvy businessman. One incident always stuck with me in this regard. One day he was perusing
eBay and happened upon a lot that Amanda Sheheen had just listed. The note was a Series of 1929 $5 from a rather
unremarkable bank; specifically, The First National Bank of Ashland, Virginia. However, Don noticed that the
charter numbers on it were mismatched. The correct number 11978 in black had come out as 11878 in the duplicates
printed in brown adjacent to the serial numbers. Small size national bank note errors were particularly hot at the
time, and this one should be worth at least a couple of thousand.
Sheheen hadn?t spotted the error so it wasn?t noted in the lot description. Don could wait until the lot played
out, wagering that no one else would notice and he could steal it. But what if it was noticed? He then would find
himself in a bidding war with no room for a big profit when the smoke cleared. Don didn?t need it all. All he wanted
was to be a player and to get a good piece of the action. Without any hesitation whatsoever, he was on the phone
to Amanda, told her exactly what she had, and she, of course, cut him in as a 50-50 partner. They went on to handle
it together to excellent advantage. Good business, good ethics and a lasting friendship.
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You Collect. We Protect.
Learn more at: www.PCGS.com/Banknote
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Southern Printers Who Printed Currency for Themselves in the Civil
War: Part 2
Charles Derby
Southern printers during the Civil War produced thousands of varieties of paper money for their clients, which
included banks, businesses, private individuals, and local, state, and Confederate governments. However, some
printers went beyond this and printed money for their own businesses. One of these was Keatinge & Ball from
Columbia, South Carolina, who printed money for their employees as described in the first article in this series (Derby
2022). This second and final article in this series discusses other Southern printers who also printed their own
currency from their print job offices: F. L. Cooper and A. N. Kimball of The Mississippian newspaper in Jackson; E.
L. Jewell of The Port Hudson News Office in Louisiana; T. O. Wise for his Periodical and News Depot in Norfolk,
Virginia; and C. C. Danley for his Arkansas State Gazette newspaper in Little Rock.
Cooper & Kimball and their The Mississippian Job Office in Jackson
This 10-cent note, issued by Cooper & Kimball in Jackson, Mississippi, with the printed date of July 10, 1862,
promised that it was ?Payable at the Counting Room of the MISSISSIPPI OFFICE in Current Funds.? This note is
listed as two varieties in Kraus (2003): K-53855 with a plain reverse, and K-53855B with a red ?TEN? on the reverse.
Shown here are two varieties with the red ?TEN? reverse: one with a red border around ?TEN? and another without
the red border.
Cooper & Kimball was the partnership of Fleet Taylor Cooper and Aaron Newton Kimball, who printed these
notes in the capital city of Jackson from their Mississippian Job Office associated with their Mississippian newspaper.
From their news and job office, Cooper & Kimball printed not only their newspaper and currency but also as the
official state printers in Mississippi many documents and records, hundreds of documents for the Confederate Army,
books, and anything else people needed printed.
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Cooper & Kimball purchased The Mississippian in early 1861 before the start of the war from Ethelbert
Barksdale when he was elected to the Confederate Congress. It was a prize, being a state-wide Democratic newspaper
founded in 1832 and with a history of its owners being state printers. After the war began, Cooper & Kimball
continued to print The Mississippian but only with great difficulty. In May 1863, as Union troops of Generals James
McPherson and William Sherman approached Jackson and the Confederate forces of Gen. Joseph Johnston, Cooper
& Kimball moved most of their printing equipment to Selma, Alabama, where they continued to print. An example
is a voucher from The Daily Mississippian Office, printed as being issued from ?Jackson? but with hand-written
changes to ?Selma,? to Surgeon B. H. Thomas for a newspaper subscription from April 18 to August 4, 1864,?for the
benefit of the sick and wounded soldiers? at the Shelby Springs Hospital. They also sold printed documents in June
1864 from Selma to Captain William Gabbett, Superintendent of the Confederate States District 9 Nitre and Mining
Service. Cooper & Kimball moved back to Jackson in 1864, but by then the state government had moved elsewhere
and Cooper & Kimball had lost their state printing contract. After the war, in August 1865, Cooper & Kimball
dissolved their partnership, with Kimball retaining control of The Mississippian but he published it for only a few
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months before selling it. Its new owner merged The Mississippian with the Weekly Herald, a major paper in
Vicksburg, and the Mississippian name was dropped by 1869, ending its four-decade history.
Fleet Taylor Cooper. F. L. Cooper was born and bred a Mississippian who became a leader in Mississippi
journalism. Born in 1835 in Lawrence County to John and Rebecca Taylor Cooper, he started in the business early,
becoming publisher and editor of The Southern Journal in Monticello. He and Kimball bought The Mississippian in
early 1861. [1861 was a big year for him: he married Mary ?Mollie? Vivian Stone (1840 - 1929) in July 6, 1861, in
Copiah County, MS, and they eventually had a daughter later that year Elizabeth Cooper (1861-1936) and another
daughter 14 years later Mabel Lee Cooper (1875-1945)]. Cooper?s editorials before the war showed that he supported
secession but not through military action. But when war came, he indicated his support for the war by enlisting in
the military on April 3, 1861, in the Mississippi Grays, which eventually became Co. A, 22nd Miss. Infantry with the
rank of sergeant. However, after mustering into the army in July, his name was not found on any rolls of this company
for the remainder of the war, suggesting that he never actually joined The Grays. Other evidence for this is that
Cooper also sold two horses to the Confederate government in Jackson in May 1863, and his printing business
activities in Selma, Alabama, in the summer of 1864 (see figure), when The Mississippian was temporarily located
there. Soon after the war, Cooper sold his share of The Mississippian to Kimball, though he stayed in the newspaper
business. He was editor of The Comet which was started in Brookhaven on June 28, 1876, and moved to Jackson the
next year. He was editor until his death in 1881, after which his nephew and namesake, Fleet Taylor Cooper, took
over the paper. (His nephew was the son of his older brother, Lieut. John Daniel Cooper [1828-1864], 7th Mississippi,
Co. C, who was wounded in Georgia on August 31, 1864, by a bullet that passed through both of his shoulders, was
transferred to a hospital at Jonesboro, Georgia, and died on October 4, 1864.) The elder F. T. Cooper died August
18, 1881, in Jackson, at the age of 46 years old, where he is buried in an unmarked grave in Greenwood Cemetery.
Aaron Newton Kimball Sr. Unlike F. T. Cooper, who was a Mississippian through and through, A. N. Newton
was a Northerner who came to Mississippi as an adult. Ten years senior to Cooper, Kimball was born March 25,
1825, in Hopkinton, Merrimack County, New Hampshire, to Aaron and Eleanor Campbell Kimball. He moved to
Nashua, New Hampshire, in the 1840s where he learned the printing and newspaper trade from his older brother,
Horatio Kimball (1821-1894), at the Gazette and the Oasis. He moved to Mississippi in the mid-1840s, where he
taught school and worked at the Mississippi Free-Trader in Natchez. Around 1850, he returned to New Hampshire,
this time to Manchester, where he worked for several newspapers. Then, he returned for good to Mississippi,
supposedly to avoid the cold winters. He soon partnered with Cooper in Jackson at The Mississippian. He married
Mary Caroline Reddin (1843?1923) on March 11, 1862, in Jackson, and they had seven children: Walter Dudley
Kimball (1863-1901), Newton Hunter Kimball (1865?1867), Carrie May Kimball Buckley (1869?1936), Abbie
Drucilla Kimball (1870), Horatio Kimball (1872?1937), Le Roy Gaston Kimball (1874?), and Aaron Newton
Kimball Jr. (1876?1938). After the war and after he sold The Mississippian, Kimball continued in the printing and
newspaper business in Jackson, including as a senior member of the Pilot Publishing Company and of Kimball,
Raymond & Co., which were State printers for years. Kimball served as alderman of Jackson and as president of the
board of supervisors of Hinds County. At the age of 65, A. N. Kimball was murdered near his residence on May 27,
1890, shocking the community since the identity and motive of his unidentified assailant was never learned. He lies
buried, as was his business partner F. T. Cooper, in Jackson?s Greenwood Cemetery.
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E. L. Jewell and his Port Hudson News Office in Louisiana
A set of notes was issued from The Port Hudson New Office, from Port Hudson, Louisiana, signed by E. L.
Jewell, all with the printed date of January 1st, 1863. At least four different notes are known, of 10, 25, and 50 cent
denominations. Three simply say that ?The Port Hudson News Office will pay the Bearer,? but one specifies that it
is as payable in Confederate notes. The Port Hudson News Office was the print/business office associated with the
Port Hudson News, a short-lived (1863) newspaper owned and edited by Edwin Lewis Jewell.
Notes from The Port Hudson News Office (courtesy of Heritage).?
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Edwin Lewis Jewell was a life-long journalist and printing innovator. He was born in Pointe Coup?e Parish,
Louisiana, in 1836. Being recognized early on as a bright and creative child, he received private tutoring and then
two years of college at Andover, Massachusetts. His father was the editor and proprietor of the Pointe Coup?e Echo
newspaper, and he taught Edwin the printing and newspaper trade. When Edwin was just 18 years old, his father
died and Edwin became proprietor Pointe Coup?e Echo. In 1862, when Union troops invaded Pointe Coup?e, Jewell
fled to the Confederate fortification at Port Hudson. Port Hudson was strategically placed in a bend of the Mississippi
River, 200 miles south of Vicksburg. At its zenith in March 1863, it held 16,000 troops. There, Jewell published the
Port Hudson News, under authorization from General Franklin Kitchell Gardner, who was in command of the fort.
He also printed documents for the Confederacy while in Port Hudson. In 1863, Union forces laid siege to the fort,
and Gardner valiantly held out until July 9, 1863, less than a week after the fall of Vicksburg. Upon the fort?s
surrender, Jewell returned to Pointe Coupee where he continued editing the Echo until after the war when in 1865 he
moved to New Orleans. There, he published the Southern Star for one year, then the New Orleans Commercial
Bulletin (later called simply The Bulletin), edited The Sunday Delta (1875), founded the The City Item, and was
employed by the The New Orleans States. He was involved in politics, serving as state senator for the 4th District.
Shortly before his death, he became an index clerk of Congress and served in that position for two sessions. But was
best known for his ?Jewell's Crescent City Illustrated? which is well described by its subtitle: ?The commercial,
social, political and general history of New Orleans: including biographical sketches of its distinguished citizens,
together with a map and a general strangers' guide.? Nine editions published between 1873 and 2005. He married
Mary Ann Farrar (1837-1878) and they had two children: Lillian Jewell Oliver (1867?1929) and Rosa Farrar Jewell
Ivens (1869?1911). Jewell died of consumption, on November 29, 1887, aged 51, and is buried in New Orleans?
Greenwood Cemetery.
C. C. Danley and his Arkansas State Gazette in Little Rock
C. C. Danley issued five notes of denominations 50?, 75?, $1, $2, and $3, designated R-411-1 to 411-5 in Rothert
(1985). These notes were issued from Little Rock, Arkansas, with the printed date of 1862 and handwritten month
and day (July and August), and were ?Payable to bearer, at my office in Little Rock, in Treasury notes of the
Confederate State of America.? Danley attempted to inspire confidence in his notes by adding the message: ?The
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Confederate money, upon which this note is based, was deposited before it was issued; the deposit will be held for its
redemption according to the terms on its face, and not used, under any circumstances, for any other purpose.?
Christopher Columbus Danley led quite a life on the American frontier in the early to mid 1800s. He was born
in Missouri territory on June 5, 1818, to pioneer Col. James and Mary Ann Dooley Danley, and they later moved to
Arkansas territory?s Pulaski county. C. C. Danley appears have been accepted into
the United States Military Academy but did not enroll. Nonetheless, he served in
both the Texas Revolution of 1836 and the Mexican-American War of 1846-48.
In the latter, Danley enlisted in June 1846 as a captain under Colonel Archibald
Yell, who had already been Arkansas? second governor. Danley was captured by
the Mexican army in January 1847 at Encarnaci?n and imprisoned, but he escaped
in August and renewed fighting for the U.S. cause. As Aide-de-Camp to Major
General John A Quitman, on September 13th, he fought at the Battle of
Chapultepec, in which the American army captured the Chapultepec Castle,
strategically located outside of Mexico City for its defense. Though the American
troops captured the castle, Danley was severely wounded, and though he survived
to return to Arkansas in May 1848, his injury left him crippled for life. Back in
Arkansas, Danley upset the Little Rock power structure by being elected in 1849
as State Auditor, which he held for three terms (1849-1854). His opponents
included ?The Family,? a Democratic stronghold that dominated Arkansas
antebellum politics. Using his growing political power and wealth, in 1853,
Danley bought the Little Rock newspaper, the Arkansas State Gazette and
Democrat, from William Woodruff, and Danley remained its owner and publisher
until his death.
The world of newspapers in the early days of Arkansas could be wild, dangerous, and even deadly, where
Southern honor encouraged or demanded that differences be settled by fighting if not dueling, even if outlawed. And
so it was with Danley (Ross 1969). In 1851 as state auditor, Danley believed that Lambert Reardon, editor of the
Arkansas Banner, was overcharging for a printing contract that he had with the state, to the tune of $1,532. Danley
made public charges with his political ally, William Woodruff, who was editor of the Arkansas State Gazette and
Democrat and competitor with Reardon and his Banner. The editorial back-and-forth bickering between the Gazette
and the Banner escalated to the point that Reardon and his junior editor at the Banner, Lambert Whitely, laid a trap
for Danley at the alley by The Anthony House, where Danley and his brother, Sheriff Benjamin Franklin Danley,
were boarders. When C. C. saw Whitely with a pistol, he used his cane to effect, resulting in the discharge of
Whitely's gun. Alerted by the sound of gunfire, two others joined in the fray to support the Danley brothers: Solon
Borland, a friend of and fellow boarder with Danley (and future U.S. Senator from Arkansas), and another of C. C.?s
brothers, William, a steamboat engineer. Borland disarmed and incapacitated Reardon, and Ben Danley caught a
fleeing Whitely.
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Gen. John Quitman (ca. 1846), the Battle of Chapultepec (Sept 1847).
After he acquired the newspaper, Danley?s political leaning began to shift away from the Democratic Party to
the new Know-Nothing Party, reflected in his dropping the last bit of his newspaper?s name, leaving it simply as the
Arkansas State Gazette. But as the Know-Nothing Party disintegrated almost as quickly as it appeared, Danley?s
political base shifted, and without clear party support, he lost his bid in 1859 for a state Senate seat. In his search for
a political party that supported his political views, and rejecting the conventional Democratic candidates for the 1860
presidential election, he served as a delegate to the 1860 convention in Baltimore, Maryland, that nominated the
Constitutional Union Party?s ticket of John Bell for president. Still, he was not without power and influence, and in
1861, C. C. was elected as one of the three members of the new Arkansas Military Board, which was created to
supersede the state militia system with the responsibility of coordinating the state?s military operations.
When war came, Danley continued publishing his Gazette, though with difficulty, not the least of which was the
disappearance of currency. This undoubtedly led Danley to print his own paper money in 1862. The war also brought
an all-to-common dilemma to C. C. and his brothers: which cause to support. The Danleys chose differently: brother
William chose the Union side, and enlisted in 1862 in the Missouri 8th Cavalry, Company C. William died two years
later, on March 23, 1864, in a regimental hospital at Little Rock of typhoid fever, and lies buried in the Little Rock
National Cemetery. When Federal troops captured Little Rock in September 1863, Danley and partner William
Holtzman were forced to cease publication of the Gazette. Upon the war?s end, they resumed its publication, with
the first post-war Gazette appearing on May 10, 1865, and with Danley writing his support of allegiance to the Union.
But Danley died just five months later, having never married, and is buried in Fairview Cemetery in Van Buren,
Crawford County. Politics being his life, he left the Gazette to Holtzman and future proprietors and editors.
T. O. Wise and his Periodical and News Depot in Norfolk, Virginia
Five cent note to T. O. Wise?s Periodical and
News Depot, in Norfolk, Virginia. This note is
PN60-98 (from Jones & Littlefield) December 14th,
1861, signed by T. O. Wise, and ?Good for one
Paper.? The note lists four papers that can be
purchased for this price: Richmond Daily (Weekly)
Dispatch, Richmond Examiner, Richmond
Enquirer, and Petersburg Express.
No imprint, but must have been printed by this
T. O. Wise. Why? Thomas Oliver Wise was in the
printing and publishing business, including
newspapers, in Norfolk [Publishing/Printing by
Thomas Oliver Wise (from Chronicling America)].
[He was not on the editing side of things, but rather
printing/publishing.] Born in 1837, he started in the printing business in the 1850s at the Norfolk Herald, run by
Thomas Greene Broughton. Wise published the Norfolk Day Book, beginning in 1857 for a few years until J. R.
Hathaway, the founding editor, took over the publishing. He co-published the Richmond Enquirer, first as Ritchie,
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Dunnavant, Tyler & Wise (1858-1860), and then as Tyler, Wise & Allegre (1860-1863). In 1864, he was publisher
of Norfolk Bulletin. So, when these notes were printed in December 1861, he was co-publisher of the Richmond
Enquirer ? which is one of the newspapers that his notes could be used to purchase.
There are several other currencies from Norfolk that are similar to T.O. Wise notes, and these were probably
also printed by Wise.
Before the war, he married Susan Cornelia Veale (Wise) (1838-1918), and they eventually had five daughters
and one son [Mary ?Mollie? Carter Wise Winston 1859?1935, Thomas Oliver Wise Jr. 1865?1899, Elizabeth
?Bettie? C. Wise (1867-?), Nellie Wise Brooke 1869?1950, Bertha Rawles Wise Lassiter 1876?1936, Alleine Wise
Curran 1879?1950]. During the war, Wise enlisted as private in Company H, Virginia 6th Infantry Regiment on
April 19, 1861. But it appears that he did not serve: a military document from December 1, 1861, says that he was
?Absent without leave, believe not to have joined Company at any time,? and he was dropped from Company rolls
(mustered out) on January 10, 1862.
After the war, he continued in the newspaper business, as editor of the Richmond Popular Messenger (1883).
He was City Printer for Norfolk during 1877-1891 ? he printed city documents, such as the 1885 ?Report of the
investigating committee of the Common and Select Councils, concerning the charges of Mayor Lamb, in his annual
message, against the Police Commissioners and police force of the city of Norfolk, Va.? All during this time, he had
a job print business, and he published many documents.
T. O. Wise, Sr. had a rise and fall of printing partnership with his only son, T. O. Wise Jr. Thomas Jr. learned
the business from Thomas Sr, and they formed a co-partnership, T. O. Wise & Son, on May 18, 1885. But a notice
in the Norfolk Virginia, February 6, 1894, announced that ?The firm of T. O. Wise & Son is this day dissolved. T. O.
Wise, Sr., will continue the Job Printing business in all its brances under the style of ?Wise?s Job Printing House,
and respectfully solicits the patronage of the public , promising good work at low prices.? T. O. Sr. died one month
later, on March 7, 1894, of heart failure, and is buried in Norfolk?s Elmwood Cemetery. The business was liquidated,
not assumed by anyone else, not even Thomas Jr.
Notes similar to T. O. Wise?s notes, possibly printed by him (courtesy of Heritage).?
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Ezra Griswold, Jr.
An honorable mention for printers who printed their own money goes out to a Northerner, Ezra Griswold Jr.,
because while he did not print money for himself, he did print money for h is fa ther , Ezra Griswold Sr .
Two of Griswold's notes are shown here. The Griswold notes are series 2875 (Wolka 2004). He printed these
under two imprints: ?S. & G. Prs.? and ?E. Griswold, jr?s print.? In S. & G. Prs., he teamed with David Smith,
formed in 1816 to publish the Ohio Monitor newspaper in Columbus, as well as running their job office in which
they printed the ?S. & G. Prs.? notes for Ezra?s father. Griswold soon sold out his interest to Smith and established
his own print office, in which he printed the ?E. Griswold, jr.?s print? notes. The Griswold Inn (image ca. 1910)
was built in 1811 by Ezra Griswold Sr. The currency printed by Ezra Jr. for his father was used for his father?s inn
and other business. Conclusion
As shown in the two articles of this series, printers in the South were an industrious and entrepreneurial lot,
printing just about anything and everything that could make a buck. Some used their job print offices to print currency
for banks, businesses, private individuals, and local, state, and Confederate governments. Some even printed currency
for their own business interests, including Keatinge & Ball in Columbia, South Carolina; Cooper & Kimball in
Jackson, Mississippi; E. L. Jewell in Port Hudson, Louisiana; T. O. Wise in Norfolk, Virginia; and C. C. Danley in
Little Rock, Arkansas. These printers were often among the best educated and with some financial means, so they
were also often publishers and even editors of their local newspapers ? examples including Jewell?s The Port Hudson
News, Wise?s Richmond Enquirer; and Danley Arkansas State Gazette. Through their currency and their newspapers,
their legacies live on.
Acknowledgments: I thank Bill Gunther for commenting on a draft of the manuscript
References
Ancestry.com
Chronicling America. Historic American Newspapers. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
Daily Commercial Herald, Vicksburg, Miss. ?Obituary of A. N. Kimball,? May 28, 1890.
Derby, Charles. Southern printers who printed currency for themselves in the Civil War. Part 1: Keatinge & Ball. Paper Money Whole No.
340, July/Aug 2022, pp. 257-262.
Encyclopedia of Arkansas. https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/arkansas-gazette-2344/
Find-a-Grave.com
Jones, Richard, and Littlefield, Keith. 1982. Virginia Obsolete Paper Money. Virginia Numismatic Association.
Kraus, Guy Carleton. 2003 Mississippi Obsolete Notes and Scrip. Society of Professional Currency Dealers.
Notes (courtesy of Heritage) printed by Ezra Griswold Jr., whose portrait is show
here as is The Griswold Inn (bottom right).?
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357
Lord, Charles Chase. 1890. Life and Times in Hopkinton, N.H. Republican Press Association, Concord, N.H.
Martin, William T. 1858. History of Franklin County. A Collection of Reminiscences of the Early Settlement of the County: with Biographical
Sketches and a Complete History of the County to the Present Time. Follett, Foster & Co., Columbus, Ohio.
Moore, Opha. 1930. History of Franklin County, Ohio. Historical Publishing Co.: Topeka-Indianapolis.
Morrison, Leonard Allison, and Sharples, Stephen Paschall. 1897. History of the Kimball Family in America from 1634 to 1897. Damrell &
Upham, Boston.
National Archives, accessed through fold3.com
Parker, Edward Everett, editor.1897. History of the City of Nashua, N.H. Telegraph Publishing Company, Nashua, N.H.
Ross, Margaret Deane Smith. 1969. Arkansas Gazette: The Early Years, 1819-1866, A History. Arkansas Gazette Foundation, Little Rock.
Rothert, Matt, Sr. 1985. Arkansas Obsolete Notes and Scrip. Society of Paper Money Collectors.
Storey, Celia. 2019. ?Newspaper wars of past packed punches: Respectable men were expected to defend their reputations to the death in the
19th century.? Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. https://www.arkansasonline.com/200/specialsection/4/
Times-Picayune, New Orleans, La. ?Obituary of Edwin Lewis Jewell.? November 30, 1887.
Weekly Virginian and Carolinian, Norfolk, Virginia. ?Obituary of T. O. Wise.? March 8, 1894.
Wolka, Wendell. 2004. A History of Nineteenth Century Ohio Obsolete Bank Notes and Scrip. Society of Paper Money Collectors.
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It?s Not Just About the Vignettes:
Obsolete $5 Note of the Bank of Camden, South Carolina
by Tony Chibbaro
Last year, after three and a half decades of collecting tokens and medals, I decided to venture into the world of
paper money. Initially, I bought a few inexpensive and colorful foreign notes, but soon settled on large-size U.S.
type notes and obsolete currency. It was the latter?s beautiful and intriguing vignettes which hooked me, and I daresay
that I am not the only one so smitten.
But it?s not really just the vignettes which have captured my attention - it?s also the tantalizing tidbits of history
which these relics of the past can provide us if we will only take the time to study and decipher their messages. Such
is the case with a recent acquisition, an obsolete $5 note issued by the Bank of Camden, South Carolina, in the decade
just prior to the Civil War.
The note pictured above carries the hand-written issue date of 18 July, 1856, in two separate places on its front,
but the plate which was used to print it was likely engraved sometime in the late 1830s or early 1840s. (The red
overprint of the ?lazy 5? can be used to loosely date the actual printing of the note itself to the 1850s.) Two printer?s
imprints appear on the note. ?Danforth, Underwood & Co. New York? appears on the left side of the note, just to
the left of a portrait labeled ?Manning,? while ?Underwood, Bald, Spencer & Hufty, Philada? appears on the right
side, just to the right of a portrait labeled ?De Saussure.? Two other varieties of this note exist - an earlier printing
without the ?lazy 5? and a later variety with a pink cycloidal overprint embodying the word ?FIVE? in large block
letters. Examples of the earlier variety can be found with issue dates in the 1840s, while specimens of the latter are
usually seen with dates in the late 1850s.
The Bank of Camden was chartered on December 19, 1835 and issued banknotes in denominations of $5, $10,
$20, $50, and $100 during its thirty-year lifespan. Its founding president and cashier were William McWillie and
William J. Grant, respectively. By 1856, the date of the issuance of the note pictured above, William E. Johnson and
W.H.K. Workman were holding those positions and it is their signatures which appear upon the note. The bank was
profitable through most of its lifespan, but, like all except one bank in the state, it became insolvent by the end of the
Civil War and was forced into receivership.
An obsolete $5 note of the Bank of Camden, South Carolina, dated 18 July, 1856, cataloged as Sheheen 28 in South Carolina Obsolete
Notes & Scrip (2003) by Austin M. Sheheen, Jr.
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The note?s central vignette (at right) features a four-
columned building constructed in Neoclassical style, in front of
which sits a small monument with the name ?De Kalb? inscribed
upon it. These two structures still stand near downtown Camden,
both them erected in the 1820s. The building is the Bethesda
Presbyterian Church and was designed by the renowned 19th-
century architect Robert Mills. The monument was also
designed by Mills and marks the grave of Baron Johann DeKalb,
who died after being mortally wounded in the Battle of Camden
(August 16, 1780).
The church was constructed first and was finished in 1822,
exactly 200 years ago. Robert Mills (1781-1855), the
aforementioned architect, was a native South Carolinian born in
Charleston at the end of the Revolutionary War. Mills is best known as the designer of the Washington Monument
in Washington, DC, even though it was not finished until three decades after his death. He is also responsible for
designing many important buildings along the Eastern Seaboard, including two multistory office complexes for the
U.S. Treasury in Washington, which now serve as the Smithsonian Institution?s American Art Museum and National
Portrait Gallery. Other of his works include a series of U.S. Custom Houses (including one I recently visited in
Newburyport, Massachusetts), the Washington Monument in Baltimore, several county court houses in South
Carolina, and many more public and private structures spread across several states.
A drawing of the church
and monument executed by
Mills still exists and is in the
collection of the South
Caroliniana Library in
Columbia, SC. Reproduced at
left, one can clearly see the
similarities between it and the
vignette on the banknote, right
down to the man gesturing
toward the monument with his
right arm. Interestingly, the
finished monument, not
completed until 1825, is slightly
different from its depiction in
both Mills? illustration and the
vignette, but still resembles a
squat version of Mills? most
famous work.
The monument depicted on the note marks the grave of Baron Johann DeKalb
(1721-1780), a French military officer who came to America with the Marquis de
Lafayette in 1777 to offer his services to the fledgling Continental Army. In early
1780, DeKalb was given command of a division of troops from Maryland and
Delaware and was ordered to march South to offer resistance to British troops in
control of Charleston. In North Carolina, DeKalb?s forces were joined by General
Horatio Gates, who took over command of the troops. Gates, the hero of the 1777
Saratoga Campaign, led his army towards Camden where it was engaged by a large
contingent of British forces. Unprepared, the American forces were routed and Baron
DeKalb was wounded on the battlefield. He died three days later and was buried in
Camden, his grave now marked by the monument pictured on the note.
The note?s central vignette features a small church and
an accompanying monument, both designed by
architect Robert Mills.
This circa-1820 drawing of Camden?s Bethesda Presbyterian Church and its accompanying
DeKalb monument was rendered by architect Robert Mills.
Baron Johann DeKalb was mortally
wounded at the Battle of Camden on
August 16, 1870. He was buried in
Camden and the monument pictured on
the banknote marks his grave.
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?The final two items of interest on this note are the pair of portraits which appear to each side of the central
vignette. Both are men of some renown in South Carolina history and both were deceased within three years of the
issuance of the Bank of Camden?s charter (probably not long before the plate for this note was engraved). Richard
I. Manning (1789-1836) was the first to die. Manning had served two years as Governor of South Carolina, from
1824 to 1826, and was in the midst of his second term as a U.S. Congressman when, during a trip to Philadelphia in
1836, he suddenly collapsed and died. He had earlier held political office in the South Carolina General Assembly,
serving both in the State Senate and State House of Representatives. Manning?s son, John L. Manning, would later
be elected Governor also, as would his grandson, Richard I. Manning III.
Henry W. DeSaussure (1763-1839) was a lawyer and a jurist, but is perhaps best known for serving as the
Director of the U.S. Mint under George Washington. DeSaussure?s stint there was short - less than six months - but
he ran the Mint when our country?s first gold coins were produced. He was also elected as Intendant (Mayor) of
Charleston in 1797. Both Manning and DeSaussure held Unionist views and were opposed to the Ordinance of
Nullification when it was adopted by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1832.
I find it interesting that this note, and its two varieties described in paragraph three, are the only pieces of obsolete
currency known from South Carolina which feature portraits of Manning or DeSaussure. I believe that in the few
years immediately following their deaths they were held in high regard by their peers, but as the South moved closer
to Secession, they fell out of favor and portraits of political leaders such as John C. Calhoun, who espoused more
radical views towards the North, began appearing more frequently on the state?s obsolete notes.
Both Richard I. Manning (left) and Henry W. DeSaussure (right) were recently deceased when their
likenesses first appeared on the Bank of Camden $5 note.
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The front of the Type-40 Treasury note endorsed by Maj. John J. Murphy, Commissary of Subsistence.
image: Roger Adamek
Maj. John J. Murphy
Chief Commissary of Subsistence
A Confederate Commissary of Subsistence
was responsible for supplying food to Confederate
soldiers, and while this may seem less interesting
than the duties of a quartermaster, we can find
important history in the files of John J. Murphy, a
Commissary of Subsistence who reported to the fiery
Episcopal minister, Lt. Gen?l Leonidas Polk. The late
Dr. Douglas Ball maintained that poor economic
policy contributed to the defeat of the Confederacy,
and we find solid evidence to support that theory in
Murphy?s files. More interestingly, Murphy was also
a spy.
The National Archives have eighty-five
documents for Murphy in the files for Officers, which
can be accessed on the website Fold3.com.
The illustrated Treasury note was endorsed in
late January of 1863, and a report dated February 13th
placed Murphy in Shelbyville, Tennessee. The
endorsement reads:
?Issued Jany 28/ 63
J J Murphy
Maj & CS?
1861 John J. Murphy of Tennessee was
appointed on October 22nd as a Major & Commissary
of Subsistence reporting to Gen?l Leonidas Polk. On
November 1st at Columbus, Kentucky, Murphy
supplied estimates to Maj. Gen?l Polk of the cost to
feed fifty thousand men for twelve months,
amounting to $8,125,725.00. Murphy added this
note:
The above estimates are made at the
present Wholesale Market prices, which as is well
The Quartermaster Column No. 26
by Michael McNeil
The endorsement of John J. Murphy, Major and
Commissary of Subsistence.
image: Roger Adamek
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known to the Commanding Gen?l are exorbitant.
But in the present attitude of our country cannot
say when they will be any lower.
Governments in wartime will enact price
controls to prevent market demand from inflating
prices. The South was a great proponent of State?s
Rights and a weak central government. The militias
were raised by the states, not the government in
Richmond. The Conscription Act was later passed in
1862 to put the state militias and market pricing
under central Richmond control. In 1861 Murphy had
no choice but to purchase food at prevailing market
prices.
To give you an idea of the scope of supplies
needed to feed troops, here is Murphy?s voucher
signed on November 14th at Columbus, Kentucky, for
rations for twenty thousand men for one month:
125,000 pounds bacon
140,000 pounds pork
350,000 pounds flour
100,000 pounds rice
41,200 pounds coffee
100,000 pounds sugar
4,200 gallons vinegar
22,800 pounds candles
20,000 pounds soap
800 bushels salt
210,000 pounds of live cattle (712)
It is clear that Murphy dealt with Subsistence
Stores on a scale much larger than those issued by the
typical commissaries who supplied a regiment; he
was dealing with the supply of an entire division in
Polk?s Corps. His endorsement on Treasury notes is
relatively rare (R13, four known at the time of this
writing), perhaps because he served at a very high
administrative level and delegated the chores of
issuance of Treasury notes to subordinates in his
staff.
1862 While the North quickly established
a single and central government money supply, the
South?s staunch defense of State?s Rights permitted a
complex market of money issued by the states, a
multitude of private banks, and the newly-established
central Treasury Department. Murphy?s job was
made more difficult by this complex Southern money
supply as evidenced in his letter of March 24th at
Jackson, Tennessee:
I would again respectfully call your attention to
the subject of making an exchange of at least one
hundred thousand dollars of Treasury Notes for
the notes or issues of the Tennessee Banks for the
purpose of purchasing Commissary & Quarter
Master Stores along the Memphis & Ohio RR,
and the Mobile & O RR. I find many parties
ready & willing to sell to our Agts, but say, they
must have such funds as the parties whom they
trade with will take. Many of them say to lay by
or to keep they would prefer Treasury Notes to
any of Memphis issues, but that they cannot pay
their debts with the one when they can with the
other....
In other words, local farmers would not take
government Treasury notes in payment, demanding
instead payment in the currency of local Tennessee
banks. On March 30th at Corinth, Mississippi,
Murphy updated Gen?l Beauregard on the results of
his plan to exchange $100,000.00 of Treasury notes
for the local bank issues, and his letter bears
testament to the problems facing the military with the
complexity of the money supply:
General, in obedience to your order of
the 24th inst. I proceeded to Memphis for the
purpose of exchanging one hundred thousand
dollars of Confederate notes for the issues of the
Banks of Tennessee, called on the officers of the
different Banks & now make the following report,
viz.
I first presented the subject to T. A.
Nelson President of the West Bank of Tennessee
who said he would cheerfully exchange his
proportion $20,000. I next visited the Bank of
Tennessee which in the same spirit agreed to the
same thing.... I next called upon the President of
the Branch of the Planters Bank, who
acknowledged the importance of the matter, and
said the Bank would do what it could, but was
fearful that would not be much, for the reason that
when Memphis was supposed to be in danger the
Parent Bank at Nashville ordered all of their
issues to be sent to that city and all he could give
me was $9,000 of its own notes and $6,000 in
Virginia Bank notes....
My next call was on the Branch of the
Union Bank which exchanged with me $6,000, its
issues having been also sent to the Parent Bank at
Nashville. I next called on the Cashier of the
Bank of Memphis who said he could not
exchange as the Bank did not have any funds
other than Confederate notes, as all the issues had
been returned to Chattanooga, I then wrote him a
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note wishing to know if he would not exchange
his checks for Confederate notes a copy of which
and his reply is hereunto appended. In all I
exchanged $61,000, $55,000 Tenn and $6,000
Virginia, the Tennessee money being in large
bills, say $500 & $1,000 each, all of which is
most respectfully submitted.
Murphy appears to have also been deeply
involved in the acquisition of intelligence. In a letter
of April 16th from Union City, Tennessee, Murphy
wrote these comments to Gen?l Thos. Jordan:
I arrived last evening and been to work
all morning perfecting an under-ground RR on
mail from here to Paducah Ky as I find that they
are administering the O[a]th (sic) to every person
who goes into Hickman. And the people here are
very tender about gowing (sic) into that place.
Besides I find that they only receive papers and
letters at Hickman only when Boats are passing
from Paducah to Island No 10.
The Rail Road is running from Paducah
to Mayfield Ky, which [is] 34 miles from this
place. I will try and get the Papers daily.
I learn here that twenty five Transports
have left Island No 10 with troops for the Tenn
River, and that Gen?l Halleck is in Command....
In a letter of April 25th at an undisclosed location,
Murphy again wrote Jordan:
I have now completed the arrangement for getting
several of the Northern News-Papers. I mailed
your letter for Nashville. I learn from a reliable
gentlemen that Gen?l Pope and nearly all his
command have left for Tenn River.
I also had an interview with an old
Steam Boat Captain who is all OK, but will make
an effort to get employment and be sent on duty
on some boat on the Tenn River. He will
communicate with you by some means if he can
effect the desired object.
I will be down on Monday or Tuesday,
when we can talk more fully on the subject.
National Archives records show that from April 6th to
April 30th Thomas Jordan was an Acting Assistant
Adjutant-General to Gen?l Beauregard.
1863 In a lighter moment Murphy wrote
Capt. G. W. Clark, CS, on January 15th at Head
Quarters Subsistence Dept., Polk?s Corps,
Shelbyville, Tennessee:
You can occasionally furnish the guards
and detailed men with you a ration of spirits,
when in your judgment they may need it.
On a report dated February 13th Murphy was
listed as Maj. & Chief Commissary of Cheatham?s
Division, Polk?s Corps, Army of Tennessee.
Vouchers for subsistence stores located Murphy at
Shelbyville, Tennessee, for the months of April, May,
and June. Murphy purchased ?one grey horse? on
August 21st at Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the sum
of $300.00 from Maj. R. M. Mason, QM. Documents
signed by Murphy after this date are rare; information
about him after this date was taken from summary
cards. Murphy was relieved of duty in the
Department of Tennessee reporting to Gen?l Bragg
on November 2nd and ordered to report for duty to Lt.
Gen?l Polk at Meridian, Mississippi.
1864 On March 4th Murphy wrote a special
requisition at Demopolis, Alabama, for two mules,
harness, and an ambulance, and noted ?That I have
no wagon to transport valuable papers & funds
belonging to my department.? Murphy was reported
to be with Lt. Gen?l Leonidas Polk at Demopolis,
Alabama, on April 10th. On May 7th Murphy was
announced as Maj. & Chief Commissary of
Subsistence on the staff of Lt. Gen?l Polk,
Department of Alabama, Mississippi, & East
Louisiana.
After the death of Gen?l Polk, Murphy was
reported during August as a Chief CS to Lt. Gen?l A.
P. Stewart?s Corps at Atlanta, Georgia. After the fall
of Atlanta Murphy was located at Tuscumbia,
Alabama, on November 8th.
1865 Murphy was surrendered by Gen?l
Joseph E. Johnston on April 26th and paroled by Maj.
Gen?l W. T. Sherman on May 1st at Greensboro,
North Carolina.
Murphy did his best to perform his duties and
rose to the challenge of acquiring supplies in an
unregulated economy, he actively acquired military
intelligence, and his endorsement is a prize for
collectors.
? Carpe diem
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U N C O U P L E D :
PAPER MONEY?S
ODD COUPLE
Joseph E. Boling Fred Schwan
Editor?s note?due to the need for larger illustrations, I have done this column with a two-column format for this page
and then went to a one-page format. [O1]
An Unusual Snorter
This column is about the very unusual short snorter
illustrated in figures 1 and 2.
For starters, it is on a $20 note; I do not recall seeing
another of this high face value. Next, it is on a pre-1929
note. Further, it is on a piece of national currency.
Finally, there is not a hint of any military connection?
no apparent soldier or sailor signers, no wartime
locations or dates.
This piece was apparently carried for decades by an
individual who traveled in social circles that afforded
chances to meet many well-known individuals, and who
was successful in having them sign the note. The signers
include musicians, professional sports figures, and
entertainers. No politicians. And among the names I
have identified, there are even more whom I have not
been able to identify (yet). In almost all cases, if I have
listed an individual below, I have been able to confirm
the autograph online. Where I have not been able to do
that, I will mention it.
See Boling page 368
More Military and WWII Fancies
A few issues ago we looked at some really interesting
low number sets. I have a few more of those to show you
today. These are all from the collection of the late, great
collector and World War II veteran Tom Warburton.
But first, I am most excited to show you a great MPC.
It is the Series 481 5 cent with serial number D14783967D
(shown above). I can almost feel you scratching your head.
Does the position number have anything to do with it? You
might recall that 84 is the highest position on a sheet of
MPC fractional notes.
By now you might have guessed that this has
something to do with multiple printings. This is
particularly likely because Series 481 had four (!)
printings. You are getting close. Here is a clue. This
certificate is from the third printing. The third printing
serial number range for five cent certificates is:
D09408001D to D14784000D.
Now you have it. Yes, this serial is only 33 places
from the very end! How cool is that?! If you saw a serial
number 33 for sale would you buy it? Of course you
would. If you saw D14783967D would you buy it?
Probably not.
I wish that I could say that I spotted this beauty, but I
cannot. Bragging rights for that go to Donn Cuson. My
only claim to fame on this note is that Donn sent it to me
to share here. If you receive the MPCGram, you have seen
it before.
365
It is easy to collect the low numbers. Well, it is easy to look for them! It takes much more skill and patience to even
look for the highest numbers. To watch for the high numbers you must own the catalog and you must have it with you.
Then you must take the time to look, look, and look.
The idea of looking for the high numbers is not entirely new. Harold Kroll took on the ultimate project. He collected
the highest number that he could find for each of the ninety MPC regular issues. To make it into his collection the note
did not have to be all that high, just the highest that Harold (or his many scouts) could find. He did a great job, but the
moving target aspect of the project wore him out. I asked him how close he had ever come to the highest for any issue.
He said that he had never gotten closer than 50 from the top.
Tom Warburton was a great collector. I do not know what else he collected, but he collected World War II very
seriously. Our collections were dead overlaps, so we sometimes had to compete, but we did it in a friendly way. We
shared our collecting passions from the 1970s into the 2000s, when he passed.
To complete this series of articles on numbers, I dug out the folder on my computer with scans from Tom?s collection.
I did not actually remember what, if any, special numbers he had. I was confident that he had some interesting things,
and I was not disappointed, as I am sure you will not be.?
Tom had a partial set similar to the AM lire and Victory note sets that we considered last time. Tom?s set is of the
1941 emergency Government of Ceylon issues. He had the number one piece of the 25 cents small change issue (not
issued until 1942) and three denominations of the legal tender issues dated 1 February 1941. The ?legal tender? clause
was not added to the design until the second issue date for this series, 1 December 1941. As you have likely seen by now,
the three early-1941 pieces are all serial number three!?
Malta had an interesting emergency issue. Never-used 1918 two-shilling notes were overprinted one shilling for use
in 1941. But look at these two numbers?1 and 5. Those were the top notes in the first strap of the unissued WWI notes.
Somebody overprinted them in black and red and then made the decision to not use the black version. Only red are known
as issued notes. But The Banknote Book illustrates serial number 3 from this same strap, with NO overprint. One wonders
how it became separated from its experimental siblings. Good on Tom for landing the pair that he had!
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There is one more unusual piece with an interesting number that was in Tom?s collection. It is in a category that we
have not previously considered. It is a proof or an essay of an emergency 1000 franc note for Djibouti with the serial
number data entered in pen or pencil, and with gibberish signatures. The purpose of the boxes around the numerals in the
corners and center is not clear, but to be consistent with the French numbering system, the number in the center should
have been 000747 to match the alphabet number (A1) and the serials (747). The illegible imprint at bottom center is
Government Printer Palestine, but it is hard to be sure where this piece was prepared.
Speaking of the French numbering system brings to mind this note, using the same system correctly. This 1000-franc
Guadeloupe E. A. Wright note is another piece that did not come from the Warburton collection. It is the ultimate number
one note! Look at all of those ones! The true serial number is
the one at top center, with no leading zeros. Unfortunately, I
have only this black and white image. I first learned of this
note in the early 1970s and chased it into the 1990s. The darn
thing changed hands several times ahead of me. Ultimately, I
was able to obtain it, but can I find it? No. It is somewhere here
in the black hole. I hope that you like it nonetheless. Assuming
that I find it one of these days, I will fit a color image into a
future column.
The Tom Warburton collection was a treasure trove of such material. We are fortunate that it was recycled into collector
hands instead of being buried in a museum someplace. In passing through an auction house, we all were able to see notes
that we did not know existed. Tom was generous in sharing his material, but there was so much of it that nobody could
have appreciated it all.
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Boling Continued
Let?s start at the upper left corner of the face (figure 3). Ben Hogan,?
champion golfer in the 1940s and 50s. There is a street named for him near
where I live in Indianapolis, which happens to be where the note was
issued. Immediately under Hogan is Dolph Camilli, the 1941 National
League MVP. These may give us a clue in dating this document.
Moving down across McCulloch?s portrait (fig 4), we find ?Babe? D.
Zaharias, a double gold medalist in the 1932 Olympics and later also a
famous golfer. There is a 1981 US postage stamp commemorating her
achievements. She is in many halls of fame and high on the lists (when not
on top) of the greatest female athletes of all time.
Moving to the front middle left (fig 5) we find Bob
Strong, a 1940s band leader. Below his signature is Glenn
Miller, an even more prominent band leader. He disappeared
in 1944 over the English Channel.
At the top center (fig 6)
is another Zaharias?George,
a professional wrestler and
sports promoter, who was
Babe?s husband. They met at
a golf tournament. Below his
signature is one for Hilda
Clark. She was an actress and
the advertising model for
Coca Cola (I can?t confirm
the autograph).
Moving to the right end vertically (fig 7), Joe Medwick, a Hall of Fame ball player with the Cardinals and Dodgers
in the 1930s and 40s, signed the note. Babe Zaharias did some exhibition major league pitching; in one of those games
Medwick, a ten-time all-star, caught the final out of her inning.
Immediately below his name is Johnny Allen, another ball
player, who compiled one of the best career win-loss records
in history (1930s-40s).
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6
Figure 7
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Turning the note over, in the left margin (fig 8) is Ellis Wilson,
perhaps the African American artist (this is not the way he signed his
paintings and I cannot verify this signature). Under that name is Clyde
McCoy, yet another band leader. Note that he uses a treble clef in place
of the two capital ?C?s in his name?a musician with imagination. He
was most active in the 1930s and 40s but did not retire until 1986.
At lower left center, to the right of the
vignette (fig 9) is Phil Levant, another band
leader of this same period. The owner of this
note (who obviously carried it a long time)
must have attended every concert that came to
town?or perhaps was also a musician, who
had many opportunities to meet others.
In the center of the back, a nice open space where it is
easier to read the signatures (fig 10) is comedian Joe E. Brown.
Brown signed more WWII short snorters than anyone else I
know, usually about 50% larger than his signature here. I
propose that this was signed before his USO tours, when his
signature was more modest than later. Immediately below
Brown is Dizzy Dean! Talk about famous folks. Dean is another
Hall of Fame player, who won thirty games and the MVP title
in 1934. Two signatures below Dean is Bert Wheeler, an actor
and comedian from the 1920s to the 60s.
Near the right end of the back, on the 1/4 fold line (fig 11),
is Woody English, another baseball player, active in the 1920s
and 30s, and an all-star in 1933. From 1952-54 he coached
the Grand Rapids Chicks of the All-American Girls
Professional Baseball League (remember A League of Their
Own?). They were league champions in 1953.
There are many more names that I can at least partially
read, but I cannot link to specific personalities (like Paul
Gray, right below English?s name). The name is too
common.
Finally, we get to the far-right end (fig 12). Here is a name that, if I have identified it correctly (it is another signature
that I cannot verify), places a latest start date
for this collection of memories. Nicholas J.
Barnhardt was a Civil War veteran who died
in South Bend, Indiana on 11 April 1917. At
that time he was going by Bernhard, but his
?Find a Grave? site gives Barnhardt as an
alternative spelling. The note is a Series
1902 national, with a plate date of March 15,
1905. That leaves plenty of time for the note
to have been in circulation in time for Barnhardt to have signed it before his death. If correct, that makes this the earliest
short snorter I have?predating my pair from the Siberian Intervention by at least two years.
Even if that dating is not correct, the years of fame for all those I have identified above place this note?s active life
no later than the 1950s. I bought it for $40 at the 2014 Central States convention?a bargain for sure. But where was it
for the fifty years before that?
And my gracious?what a lot of other research is possible on this note.
Figure 8
Fig 9
Figure 10
Fig 11
Figure 12
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FRACTIONAL CIVIL WAR WALLET WITH A
POIGNANT INSCRIPTION
By Rick Melamed
A recently discovered relic from the Civil War era is worth bringing to light. It is an inexpensive, functional
cardboard fractional wallet with a third issue 3? fractional included (Fr. 1226). The wallet has been in the same
family continuously since the 1860?s. In 2017, it was consigned to an antique dealer by the family descendants; an
elderly couple residing in the Mid-Atlantic region. But what makes this find so special is the timeless inscription.
Its poignancy still resonates today.
History
The dealer shared some minimal background information:
The family name is Jordan. They originally settled in Maine in 1638. By 1863 they were in Long Island, New
York. The family ran a cargo shipping business after the grandfather worked his way up from entry level to owning
the firm. The money belonged to a young female, a gift from her Dad.
An independent search has found many instances of The Bower family?s participation in overseas shipping
during the 19th century. Detailed shipping logs were kept by Lloyd?s Register of Shipping.
Contents:
The inside of the wallet
contains a 3? note and a
period drawing of a
bucolic river scene (albeit
in rough shape). The front
of the wallet states Uncle
Sam?s Wallet ? denoting it
is a Union made wallet.
Inside the wallet, on the
left, the inscription reads:
L. E. Bower (daughter)
from M.B.B 1864. M.B.B.
is the father -
M.B. Bower.
On the right side is
another L.E. Bower
signature, dated March
31, 1863.
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Note Inscription
On the face of the note, written in the left margin is: "Pa gave me this in 1865?. On the reverse top is written:
?Last money my father gave me in February 1865?. Underneath that is written: "Then a new issue of which this
was some of the first he received.". On the right edge on the back: "Pa gave this to me in Feb - ruary 1865."
The February 1865 date on this note coincides with Treasury records. 3rd issue fractionals were first released
to the public in January 1865. When the senior Bower received the 3? note the following February, he saved it for
his daughter. It?s only natural to want to hold onto this unusual note with the odd denomination. Young Ms. Bower
wanted to record this last modest gift from her father as a sentimental token. Something she obviously treasured.
The note and wallet carries a deeper gravitas with the presumed sudden death of her father. One can only wonder if
he died from natural causes or if he was he a Civil War casualty. What?s more powerful than the daughter?s love for
her deceased father? She memorialized her grief onto a treasured keepsake, which was to become a family heirloom.?
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by Robert
Calderman
?Diamonds are Forever!?
Collectors with keen eyes and lots of patience are
capable of unearthing amazing treasures. Hidden Gems
hiding in plain sight are truly what a picker?s dreams are
made of. What sparkly jewel has been found recently you
ask? Well you likely wouldn?t believe it if I told you. Even
now, I cannot decide if I should disclose the incredible
bargain that fell into someone?s lap over the summer. Is it
fair to fill your hearts with anguish? To underscore the
blunders of epic proportion that befell all of the countless
dealers and collectors that missed out? So many had their
radar completely turned off! Well my friends, it happens
far too often and that is what makes collecting paper
money so much fun! An exciting mega deal every once in
a while keeps collectors on their toes and hungry for more.
And it fuels dealers who need a shot in the arm, an extra
boost of revenue to cover their expenses and keep them
solvent so you will continue to see them set-up regularly at
your local shows. Now that, at least a few of you, are
waiting with bated breath as to the: what, why, and where
of this story, let us dive right in.
If you have been reading this column for a while
you likely have caught wind that I am a fan of small size
five-dollar bills and their countless number of varieties.
Here we have another fabulous Lincoln to admire from the
mighty King Alpha block. The K-A block comprises a
bountiful treasure trove of collecting pleasure for die hard
small size enthusiasts. K-A ran the full race from
K00000001A ? K99999999A and can be found on both the
1934A and 1934B series of five-dollar silver certificates.
1934A features both, the standard blue seals we know and
love as well as the famous emergency issue yellow seal
North Africa notes. Of the two seals on the 1934A K-A
block, there are thirteen serial number ranges to collect as
the yellow and blue seals change back and forth through
their varying print runs! 1934B features only blue seals
toward the tail end and fourteenth group of serial number
ranges, with notes typically found starting at K90480001A
and above, however 1934B K-A?s have been observed
with earlier serial numbers that fall into the 1934A range.
Consequently, 1934A K-A notes have been found with
SN?s that fall into the 1934B range. If you are paying
attention, this makes sixteen varieties to collect on the K-A
block! Fourteen SN ranges and two out of range toughies
make a total of sixteen notes. Where can you find all of
these SN groups in a conveniently organized pocket size
printed table? Take a look at the end of this installment in
the recommended reading section and dig up the article
King Alpha from 1989 it is a tasty treat to be sure! There is
more to the story with K-A as bp.637 mules can be found
on blue seal 1934A and 1934B notes. The later are
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extremely tough mules to locate, even low-grade tattered
rags are special notes. If you find a VG with problems, it is
still a keeper!
Now with the mules we are up to eighteen notes to
collect on the K-A block. However, we are not stopping
now. If you can believe it, there is still another major
variety to be found on King Alpha! Late finished plate 307
is a treasure that appears only on 1934A blue and yellow
seal silver certificates. You will not find an example on the
series of 1934B. A total of 569,244 fp.307 notes were
printed on both yellow and blue seals combined. This total
makes up approximately one half of one percent of the
total printing found on the K-A block! Even with such a
small overall printing, an example of a yellow seal fp.307
in average circulated condition can be found without much
difficulty. On the contrary, blue seals are very tough notes
in any condition! In CU both seal varieties of fp.307 are
rare birds! PMG has graded a total of only eleven
uncirculated yellow seal 307?s and seven uncirculated blue
seal 307?s. In Gem and above the numbers become
virtually uncollectible with just 5 and 3 notes respectively.
Gem 307 notes are very tightly held and seldom appear at
auction. On the rare occurrence that one does show up at
auction expect a fierce battle to ensue. So now we can add
two more notes to make an enormous twenty possible K-A
varieties to assemble for a complete set! This does not
include trying to collect multiple fp.307 examples from the
varying serial number groups. That would be an amazing
feat of strength and take an incredible amount of patience.
Now that we have a brief overview of what makes the
five-dollar silver certificate K-A block so spectacular, you
should have a very clear picture of what makes the note
featured here such an epic cherry pick! This summer, a
very lucky individual managed to score a stunning fp.307
North Africa note in PMG 65EPQ for the bargain price of
$552.00!!! How can this even be possible? Surely it was a
mistake of epic proportions? Take a very close look at the
note pictured. The PMG label displays the correct
Friedberg number and the correct serial number. The note
is very well centered with little to no distracting handling
marks visible. However, as you can clearly see, there is no
mention of the late finish plate variety on the holder! The
submitter should have notated on their submission form in
the variety/attribution column that the note was a coveted
fp.307 example. Perhaps they were completely unaware
that this key variety even exists. The note was offered on a
Tuesday night weekly Heritage auction at no reserve
without any mention of the coveted fp.307 in the lot
description. An absolutely amazing opportunity for
whoever it was that benefited from having eagle eye vision
that night! It is up to collectors and dealers to know what
they have. Do not expect things to always be perfect and
never fall through the cracks at both the grading companies
and auction houses. You need to study and do your own
homework to get the most out of your collection!
So does it really matter in the grand scheme of things
whether or not a North Africa five-dollar silver certificate
in Gem 65EPQ has fp.307 vs. a plain Jane garden variety
face plate number? We have already looked at the
miniscule number of PMG fp.307 Gem and higher
examples tallying in at just five notes. In stark contrast, the
population of regular North Africa examples in 65EPQ or
higher add up to a massive three-hundred-eighty-five
notes!!! Is there a price disparity between the specialized
variety and the non-variety? The most recent sale of a
properly attributed 1934A five-dollar silver certificate late
finished plate #307 yellow seal example in 65EPQ sold for
$1,440.00 just last year in January 2021. I?d say the
person who scored the note pictured here at well over a
60% discount should be absolutely over the moon ecstatic!
When you are lucky enough to pluck diamonds like this
out of the wild, enjoy the moments.
Do you have a great Cherry Pick story that you?d like
to share? Your note might be featured here in a future
article and you can remain anonymous if desired! Email
scans of your note with a brief description of what you
paid and where it was found to: gacoins@earthlink.net
Recommended reading:
? The ?King Alpha? $5 Silver Certificate by Graeme M. Ton, JR.
(Paper Money *Jan/Feb 1987 Whole No. 127)
? Late Finished Plates Used to Print Small Notes by Peter Huntoon
(May/June 1984 Whole No.111)
? The Enduring Allure of $5 Micro Back Plates 629 and 637 by
Peter Huntoon (Paper Money *Sep/Oct 2015 * Whole No. 299)
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The Obsolete Corner
The Bank of Manchester
by Robert Gill
As you read this article Fall will almost be upon
us. Here in Southern Oklahoma we've had the usual
Summer... hot and dry. But I've been able to keep
active in the "world of paper", as I've picked up a
couple of nice pieces. I hope you have been able to do
good for yourself also. Now, let's look at the sheet
from my collection that I've chosen to share with you.
In this issue of Paper Money, let's go to the state
of Michigan and look at The Bank of Manchester. In
my research, I've been able to find a little history on
this institution. And thanks to my good friend / SPMC
member, Dr. William R. Hancuff, who has also
researched this subject, we have some idea of the
goings on of this Bank.
Like many other small towns in Michigan,
Manchester, with a population of only eight hundred
and five, was to receive its share of hardship as a result
of a ?wildcat? bank. With a capital of $100,000, The
Bank of Manchester, being one of seven of these
haphazard banks in Washtenaw County, was organized
in October of 1837. The sale of stock took place from
November 6th thru 9th and sold out immediately.
George Howe was seated as Bank President, and
Andrew Irwin was put in the position of Cashier. The
Bank began operations on November 22nd. Its bank
notes had already been printed, and most were signed
two days before opening. The location of business was
at 107 West Main Street, the home of Cashier Irwin.
During this Bank's life it suffered severe
problems, many self-inflicted. It did comply with
current Michigan banking laws by backing thirty per
cent of its capital in gold, and securing the remainder
of its circulation in real estate. But there was one
catch! It shared its specie with the bank in Sharon,
Michigan. As soon as State Bank Commissioner
Alpheus Feich had approved Manchester?s bank and
headed for his next inspection, which just happened to
be at Sharon, the gold was loaded up to be sent back to
Sharon. According to reports, it was some race. When
the dust cleared, Mr. Feich's coach and four men stood
exhausted at the door of the Sharon bank, and there
was no gold in the safe. They had made it there in time
to expose the fraud.
Very soon afterwards The Bank of Manchester
had another unsatisfactory visit from the
Commissioner. On February 21st, 1838, Feich
conducted another check on the Bank. Cashier Irwin
told him that only $34,000 of the Bank's bills were put
in circulation, within the regulatory backing limit. In
actuality, the Bank had issued between $107,000 and
$118,000 in bills, exceeding the legal maximum.
On March 22nd another Bank Commissioner,
Colonel Fitzgerald, published a notice cautioning the
public against receiving the bills of The Bank of
Manchester. Part of his warning was as follows:
The fraud was further publicized on April 19th
when the State Journal reported:
James Fargo replaced Irwin as Cashier, when on
May 18th, a perjury warrant was issued for Irwin's
arrest. A second warrant was issued against both
Howe and Irwin for fraud. With its officers facing
criminal charges, Fargo temporarily saved the Bank by
reducing circulation from more than $100,000 to
$25,514. Nevertheless, a local newspaper reported that
the "stockholders would find it to their advantage to
close the institution".
Because of the stringency of the times, and very
serious self-inflicted problems, The Bank of
Manchester struggled thru its short life. And on
November 19th, 1839, it was placed into receivership.
The people of the small town of Manchester lost
much, but they gained, in return for all their losses and
trouble, some very valuable experience.
So there's the history behind this old bank. And,
as it so often happened back then, the innocent public
was left with the loss.
As I always do, I invite any comments to my cell
phone number (580) 221-0898, or my personal email
address robertdalegill@gmail.com
So, until next time, HAPPY COLLECTING.
"I am induced to give this notice in order to prevent
designing knaves from imposing upon honest men, and
cheating them out of their property, by purchasing it
with such worthless trash... No bank of respectability
should disgrace itself by receiving and paying out at its
counter such worthless rags..."
"The Cashier of this institution (Bank of
Manchester), we understand, has taken leg bail,
having disposed of some fifty thousand dollars
without knowledge of the Directors!"
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Distribution to Fed Banks of 1928 XYZ $1 Experimental Notes
The Treasury issued $1 experimental notes in 1933 to test different ratios of cotton and linen in
the composition of currency paper.1 The notes were issued as Series of 1928A and 1928B, and carried X-
B, Y-B, and Z-B serial numbers. Each block specific to one of three distinct papers, with Z-B serials
applied to the standard paper then in use. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing finished 31,224,000
notes, about evenly divided among the three paper types.
Starting in June, William Broughton, chief of the Bureau of Public Debt, informed the Federal
Reserve banks of the experiment and described how they?d be involved. He instructed each bank,
commencing at the start of the next fiscal year (July 1, 1933), to issue the experimental notes to the
exclusion of other $1 notes. As the notes were redeemed from circulation, the banks were to report to
Public Debt any exceptional wearing qualities.
That same month, the Federal Reserve Board apportioned the notes among the federal reserve
districts and their branches. The treasurer immediately began distributing the notes to each bank and
completed the shipments by mid-July, as follows:2
It?s obvious the notes were apportioned based on each district?s population. It?s also assumed
each bank received roughly equal amounts of notes from each block. Nearly two-thirds of the notes went
to the large metropolitan areas of the Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago bank districts.
Smaller amounts went to the southern and midwestern districts. Minneapolis received the least at
$504,000.
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Two branches?Detroit and Los Angeles?received more notes than eight federal reserve banks.
Salt Lake City, a branch of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, received $24,000, the least of any
bank or branch.
The U.S. Treasurer received $300,000, presumably for use in the Treasury Cash Room.
Undistributed at the time of the letter was $484,000, and it?s unknown when and how those eventually
were dispersed.
Records of how many notes the Treasury received in redemptions from each district weren?t
included in the trove of archived documents about this experiment3?if they were recorded at all. But
from where the notes returned wasn?t the point; treasury officials had no control over that. What mattered
was distributing the notes as widely as possible across the country to ensure they experienced a variety of
circulating conditions. After all, the experiment was to test how the different currency papers would
withstand the rigors of circulation compared to standard paper. On that the experiment was inconclusive,
and the standard paper, well, remained the standard.
***
Correction: In the photo caption to my article in the 2022 July/August issue (1934A Minneapolis $20s), I
mistakenly referred to the back plate serial as ?macro.? The serial number, 316, is a micro.?JY
Sources Cited
1. Yakes, Jamie. ?The Experimental X-Y-Z Series of 1928 $1 Silver Certificates.? Paper Money 52, no. 6 (2013,
Nov/Dec): 466.
2. Smead, E. L., Division of Bank Operations Chief, Federal Reserve Board, July 11, 1933, letter to William S.
Broughton, Bureau of Public Debt Commissioner, discussing experimental currency paper used from
1932?1934: Bureau of Public Debt Files, Series F Currency, Record Group 53/450/54/02/01, box 4, file
F330, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland.
3. United States Treasury, Bureau of Public Debt, various files discussing experimental currency paper used from
1932-1934: Bureau of Public Debt Files, Series F Currency, Record Group 53/450/54/02/01, box 4, file
F330, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland.
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The Cult of TOP POP
Of all the changes that have taken place to collecting
pursuits in the last generation, perhaps the most
transformative has been the grading and encapsulation of
collectibles (?slabbing?) by third-party entities. So much
has been written about this phenomenon that there remains
little new to discuss about the pros and cons of slabbing.
To recapitulate the standard views, slabbing is good
because it keeps your Cheetos-stained fingers off your
collectibles, for posterity?s benefit. Although some people
quibble with its grading standards, slabbing settles grading
disputes. It roots out numismatic forgeries and creates
provenance records. Standardized and transparent grading
makes collectibles markets more liquid and efficient. It
may also cause some market disintermediation, by
encouraging collectors to sell directly to each other
without dealers taking their cut.
Conversely, slabbing/encapsulation is bad if it keeps
your (now washed and clean) fingers from touching your
collectibles. Without getting too pervy about it, coin and
paper money collecting are tactile experiences which are
diminished when plastic holders get in the way?wearing
the proverbial raincoat in the shower. Third-party grading
may minimize disputes, but it also fosters collectors?
ignorance by absolving them of the responsibility for
learning how to grade themselves. The same market
liquidity and efficiency touted as beneficial also
encourage an investor mindset that hobby purists find off-
putting (and expensive).
Finally, there is the deadweight loss that comes from
collectors spending money to have their items
encapsulated in the first place. Many millions of dollars
have gone into the pockets of third-party graders. Not one
cent of that can ever do anything to actually improve the
condition of the items slabbed.
Personally, and for the record, I have no problem
with owning encapsulating items. However, I do want to
devote some space to discussing one other consequence of
slabbing that arises from the employment of a highly
differentiated, quantified grading system, namely some
version of the Sheldon (1-70) scale. This is the
phenomenon of what I would call ?induced scarcity?, or
the creation of scarcity as an artifact of the grading scale
itself. As everyone knows, paper money prices, especially
for certain modern Federal Reserve notes, have recently
gone through the roof. If this reflects collector demand,
then so be it. But I wonder to what extent these increases
are driven instead by the differentiation introduced by the
grading system itself, resulting in skyrocketing prices for
items in the very highest grades.
This has been going on for so long in the American
numismatic market that people take it for granted. To
explain what I mean I?ll use an example from one of my
own collecting interests, Imperial German coins. In the
last ten years, slabbing which was once nonexistent in that
market has become increasingly commonplace. German
collectors and dealers have, of course, their own perfectly
good grading system (and wonderful coin albums). While
there was some German resentment of the intrusion of
what some regarded as an absurd and unnecessary
American infatuation, slabbed coins have become fairly
common on numismatic websites like MA-Shops.
As this has happened, the same pricing dynamic
prominent in the American market emerged with German
coins as well. Anything slabbed above the grade of MS65
(what Germans would euphoniously call fast
Stempelglanz) has experienced a rapid escalation in price
(at least in listed prices). The result is that even common
date one-mark coins that might go for fifteen or twenty
dollars in some generic mint state are now priced five to
ten times that amount for examples graded MS66 or
above. Some German sellers have even adopted the
breathless American expression TOP POP to justify prices
for those highest-grade pieces.
Whether these are real prices paid or simply
aspirational, I don?t know. German coin magazines that
routinely publish prices haven?t yet adopted MS
designations, with the weird result that published prices
seem far lower than the actual prices offered (and maybe
even realized) by dealers. If this is the case, then it
illustrates vividly the ?induced scarcity? effect. By
identifying and quantifying ever smaller populations of
slight-better examples of even common numismatic
collectibles, grading services create the perception and
reality of scarcity where none existed before.
For any other purchasable good (airplane seats, for
example) such pricing would be regarded as routine
market segmentation. Yet with collectibles, I think some
caution is in order. People will always need to fly in
airplanes. They don?t need to collect coins or paper
money. A sustainable hobby certainly can?t have prices
fall indefinitely, otherwise nobody would take up
collecting at all. Yet a hobby where prices continually rise
also faces an upside danger. As the economist Irving
Fisher once said about the stock market in October 1929,
?prices have reached what looks like a permanently higher
plateau.? We know how that prediction worked out.
Chump Change
Loren Gatch
378
SPMC Festivities at ANA and FUN?
Make Plans Now to Attend!
The SPMC will have a club table #259 at the August ANA.
We will also have a meeting and show-and-tell on Saturday
August 20. Stop by the table and say hi and then attend the
meeting, see great Confederate, Nationals and other paper
and join in some paper camaraderie.
Our IPMS Activities of the past
are now starting back up at
WINTER FUN!!!
Friday, Jan 6th, we will have a BOG meeting.
Saturday, Jan 7th will be our fun activities in
the Convention Center.
? 8a--we will have our Breakfast and Tom Bain Raffle with our
Master of Ceremonies?Wendell Wolka.
? At this time we will also present our literary and other
awards and announce our 2022 Hall of Fame class.
As always, our raffle will have Big prizes, surprises,
mystery boxes and we will ?Mix ?em Up!?
Price of entry includes a newly designed & collectible breakfast
ticket. Watch the website on ticket ordering information.
We will be finished by 10a so all can go to the bourse.
Pierre Fricke will be presenting one of the educational forums,
time TBA.
We also encourage all to place a Paper Money (or related) exhibit.
379
OUR MEMBERS SPECIALIZE IN
LARGE SIZE TYPE NOTES
They also specialize in National Currency, Small Size Currency,
Obsolete Currency, Colonial and Continental Currency, Fractionals,
Error Notes, MPCs, Confederate Currency, Encased Postage,
Stocks and Bonds, Autographs and Documents, World Paper Money . . .
and numerous other areas.
THE PROFESSIONAL CURRENCY DEALERS ASSOCIATION
is the leading organization of Dealers in Currency,
Stocks and Bonds, Fiscal Documents and related paper items.
PCDA
To be assured of knowledgeable, professional, and ethical dealings
when buying or selling currency, look for dealers who
proudly display the PCDA emblem.
For further information, please contact:
The Professional Currency Dealers Association
PCDA
? Holds its annual National Currency Convention in conjunction with the Central States Numis-
matic Society?s Anniversary Convention. Please visit our Web Site pcda.com for dates and location.
? Encourages public awareness and education regarding the hobby of Paper Money Collecting.
? Sponsors the John Hickman National Currency Exhibit Award each year, as well as Paper Money
classes and scholarships at the A.N.A.?s Summer Seminar series.
? Publishes several ?How to Collect? booklets regarding currency and related paper items. Availability
of these booklets can be found on our Web Site.
? Is a proud supporter of the Society of Paper Money Collectors.
Or Visit Our Web Site At: www.pcda.com
Susan Bremer ? Secretary
16 Regents Park ? Bedford, TX 76022
(214) 409-1830 ? email: susanb@ha.com
U.S. CURRENCY SIGNATURE? AUCTION
Dallas | October 5-7
Highlights from Our Upcoming Official Long Beach Auction
View all lots and bid at HA.com/3589
Paul R. Minshull #16591. BP 20%; see HA.com. 65705
DALLAS | NEW YORK | BEVERLY HILLS | CHICAGO | PALM BEACH
LONDON | PARIS | GENEVA | BRUSSELS | AMSTERDAM | HONG KONG
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For a free appraisal, or to consign to an upcoming auction, contact a
Heritage Consignment Director today. 800-872-6467, Ext. 1001 or Currency@HA.com
Fr. 2220-F $5,000 1928 Federal Reserve Note
PMG Choice Very Fine 35
Fr. 2231-G $10,000 1934 Federal Reserve Note
PMG Extremely Fine 40
Fr. 1200 $50 1922 Gold Certificate
PMG Superb Gem Uncirculated 67 EPQ
Fr. 263 $5 1886 Silver Certificate
PMG Gem Uncirculated 66 EPQ
Fr. 1133-F $1,000 1918 Federal Reserve Note
PMG Choice Extremely Fine 45 EPQ
New Orleans, LA - $50 1875 Fr. 444
The Hibernia National Bank Ch. #2086
PMG Very Fine 30
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