official journal of The Society of Paper Money Collectors Issuance & Redemption of Aldrich-Vreeland Emergency Currency America’s Oldest and Most Accomplished Rare Coin Auctioneer 1550 Scenic Ave., Suite 150, Costa Mesa, CA 92626 • 949.253.0916 470 Park Ave., New York, NY 10022 • 212.582.2580 • NYC@stacksbowers.com 84 State St. (at 22 Merchants Row), Boston, MA 02109 • 617.843.8343 • Boston@StacksBowers.com 1735 Market St. (18th & JFK Blvd.), Philadelphia, PA 19103 • 267.609.1804 • Philly@StacksBowers.com Info@StacksBowers.com • StacksBowers.com California • New York • Boston • Philadelphia • New Hampshire • Oklahoma • Virginia Hong Kong • Paris • Vancouver SBG PM AugGlobal2024 HLs 240501 LEGENDARY COLLECTIONS | LEGENDARY RESULTS | A LEGENDARY AUCTION FIRM Contact Our Experts for More Information Today! Consign@StacksBowers.com August 2024 Global Showcase Auction Highlights from STACK’S BOWERS GALLERIES An ANA World’s Fair of Money® Auctioneer Partner August 12-16 & 19-22, 2024 • Consign U.S. Currency by June 17, 2024 Highlights from The Porter Collection Fort Benton, Montana Territory. $5 1875. Fr. 404. The First NB. Charter #2476. PMG About Uncirculated 53. Beaumont, Texas. $20 1882 Brown Back. Fr. 504. The Citizens NB. Charter #5841. PMG Choice Uncirculated 64 EPQ. Guthrie, Territory of Oklahoma. $10 1882 Brown Back. Fr. 485. The Capitol NB. Charter #4705. PMG Choice Very Fine 35. Serial Number 1. Vinton, Virginia. $10 1902 Plain Back. Fr. 633. The First NB. Charter #11911. PMG About Uncirculated 53. Serial Number 1. Fr. 126b. 1863 $20 Legal Tender Note. PMG Choice Uncirculated 64 EPQ. Fr. 152. 1874 $50 Legal Tender Note. PMG Choice About Uncirculated 58. Fr. 151. 1869 $50 Legal Tender Note. PMG Choice Very Fine 35. Fr. 212d-I. July 15th, 1865 $50 Interest Bearing Note. PMG Very Fine 20. Peter A. Treglia Director of Currency PTreglia@StacksBowers.com Tel: (949) 748-4828 Michael Moczalla Currency Specialist MMoczalla@StacksBowers.com Tel: (949) 503-6244 158 Issuance & R3demption of Aldrich-Vreeland Emergency Currency--Lee Lofthus 197 Update on Wade $10 Silver Certificate Article--Huntoon, Lofthus, Moffitt 202 Treasury Sealing Assigned to Treasurers Office--Peter Huntoon, Doug Murray 220 Postmaster Marshall 'Left Holding the Bag--Bob Laub 214 Uncoupled--Joe Boling & Fred Schwan 222 Cherry Pickers Corner--Robert Calderman 224 Obsolete Corner--Robert Gill 226 Chump Change--Loren Gatch 227 Quartermaster Column--Michael McNeil 230 UNESCO-Antigua--Roland Rollins 231 Small Notes--Jamie Yakes SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 153 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 Mark Anderson 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 Brent Hughes Glenn Jackson Don Kelly Lyn Knight Chet Krause Allen Mincho Clifford Mishler Barbara Mueller Judith Murphy Dean Oakes Chuck O'Donnell Roy Pennell Albert Pick Fred Reed Matt Rothert John Rowe III From Your President Editor Sez New Members Uncoupled Cherry Picker Corner Obsolete Corner Chump Change Quartermaster UNESCO Small Notes Robert Vandevender 155 Benny Bolin 156 Frank Clark 157 Joe Boling & Fred Schwan 214 Robert Calderman 222 Robert Gill 224 Loren Gatch 226 Michael McNeil 227 Roland Rollins 230 Jamie Yakes 231 Stacks Bowers Galleries IFC Pierre Fricke 153 Bob Laub 174 FCCB 176 Higgins Museum 178 Fred Bart 180 Whatnot 195 Lyn Knight 196 Bill Litt 201 PCGS-C 213 Greysheet 219 World Banknote Auctions 221 Whitman Publishing 232 PCDA IBC Heritage Auctions OBC Fred Schwan Neil Shafer Herb& Martha Schingoethe Hugh Shull Glenn Smedley Raphael Thian Daniel Valentine Louis Van Belkum George Wait D.C. Wismer SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 154 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 APPOINTEES PUBLISHER-EDITOR ADVERTISING MGR Benny Bolin smcbb@sbcglobal.net Megan Reginnitter mreginnitter@iowafirm.com LIBRARIAN 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 From Your President Shawn Hewitt Paper Money * July/August 2020 6 jeff@actioncurrency.com LEGAL COUNSEL Robert Calderman gacoins@earthlink.com Matt Drais stockpicker12@aol.com Mark Drengson markd@step1software.com Pierre Fricke pierrefricke@buyvingagecurrency.com Loren Gatch lgatch@uco.edu Derek Higgins derekhiggins219@gmail.com Raiden Honaker raidenhonaker8@gmail.com William Litt billitt@aol.com Cody Regennitt Andy Timmerm Wendell Wolka er cody.regennitter@gmail.com Once again, Spring has arrived, bringing us nicer weather. Although my “temporary” job in California was supposed to last eight months, in April, I completed five years in San Clemente. I do expect the job to end sometime later this year and I will return home. A byproduct of this situation has the potential to turn me into a Delta Airlines “Million Miler” either late this year or early in the next year. In mid-February, we learned the sad news that our SPMC Governor, Jerry Fotchman, passed away in Texas. Jerry also served as the President of the Fractional Currency Collectors Board for many years. Jerry was a very active and engaged member of our board and routinely contributed to our efforts. He will be missed by all of us. In March, our board member, Derek Higgins, and his wife Jessica, also an SPMC member, staffed a table representing the SPMC at the ANA National Money Show in Colorado Springs, CO. I personally have never been to Colorado Springs. Taking a tour of the ANA Money Museum is on my bucket list for a future visit. On April 8th, Nancy and I joined several of our family members in Indiana to witness the total solar eclipse. My daughter, Holly, hosted the watch party at her home. In addition to plenty of food to eat, she ensured several types of snacks such as Sun Chips, Moon Pies, Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies were available! The weather cooperated and we had a spectacular view of the 100% eclipse, being able to remove our glasses for about three and a half minutes during totality. No doubt many of you attended the 3rd annual National Banknote Collectors Conference in Dallas. I am looking forward to hearing about the event and hope to be able to attend the next one. I continue to enjoy reading the various posts on social media. Recently, there have been many posts regarding web-fed notes and comments by various new collectors who weren’t aware of that variety of notes. Many of our members routinely answer questions, which appears to be helping several new collectors come up to speed on the hobby. I encourage each of you to continue to educate potential new collectors in this regard. The SPMC is planning to staff a table at the Chicago ANA World’s Fair of Money in August. If you make it to the show, please stop by and say hello! an andrew.timmerman@aol.com purduenut@aol.com SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 155 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 Welcome to the May/June issue of Paper Money. First and foremost, let me apologize in advance if this issue comes to you late or is not the general high quality that is usually put out. This is the end of school time and this year it has been extremely busy. Those kids really want summer to come, but we have another month before that happens. Senioritis strikes all the way down to the sophomore level! It also strikes at the faculty/staff level as well--I am as ready as them to get into some much needed time off. But the main reason for my distraction and lateness, is that on April 2 when I am usually at the height of putting an issue out, my mother-in-law passed away quite unexpectedly. Helping my wife and sister-in-law with that has been tough. Dealing with all the emotions is bad enough, but dealing with the estate has been very trying--and it is a simple estate! Oh well, so much for my pity party and time to move forward. As we enter into the summer where the show schedule ramps up big-time, I hope you all are able to attend at least one show. The camaraderie at shows is, in my opinion, the best part. Seeing old friends and gaining new acquaintances is great. Of course scouring that bourse floor for that special note is great too! Speaking of that special note, I have recently changed the focus of my collection. No, I am not giving up fractional, but am pursuing another of my passions with vigor--fractional currency mimics. These are essentially advertising notes, primarily from the non-Confederate states issued to combat change issues after the Civil War. They mimic fractional by having a design that "mimics" the backs of the third issue 10c, 25c and 50c fractional currency. While I usually only see about 2-3 of these a year for sale, this past March and April there evidently was a collection up for sale with Lyn Knight and Heritage. About 20 have been offered at auction and I have been lucky enough to get about 15 of them with more to come during April and maybe May. I say a collection as there are only a very few duplicates and most are loners. I now have 122 of them. I like to say, just to make me look important, that it is the largest collection out there! I have written an electronic book on the subject (it includes notes payble in fractional, look-a-likes and kinda-look-a-likes and even includes a section on college notes with "fractional" on them) and it has now swelled to over 525 pages! Anyway, enough about me. I hope you enjoy this and the next issue as the majority of the article space will be taken up by two large articles. This issue has an article by Lee Lofths and is on some WWII currency and next issue Steve Feller will introduce us to money used in the Japanese-American internment camps of WWII. I publish them without splitting them as I think that reads much better. Till next time! Stay safe and enjoy summer! SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 156 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 3/05/2024 NEW MEMBERS 4/05/2024 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. REINSTATEMENTS None LIFE MEMBERSHIPS None 15684 Greg Shaban, Gary Dobbins 15685 Frank Stroik, Website 15686 Craig Norman, Don Kelly 15687 Richard Smith, Website 15688 Steve Neise, Website 15689 Richard Chavarria, Website 15690 David Viga, Website 115691 Adam Miller, Derek Higgins 15692 Marc Shull, Hugh Shull 15693 Bob McNeil, Tom Snyder 15694 Dillon DiVello, Robert Calderman 15695 Reverdy Orrell, Website 15696 Dennis Mohr, Frank Clark 15697 Camden McDonald, Dustin Johnston REINSTATEMENTS 14508 Jose Serrano, Frank Clark 15223 Rex Nelson, Frank Clark LIFE MEMBERSHIPS None SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 157 Protocols for Handling the Issuance and Redemption of Aldrich-Vreeland Emergency Currency Lee Lofthus Objectives The purposes of this article are to place the passage of the Aldrich-Vreeland Emergency Currency Act of 1908 into its historic context and to explain how the issuance and redemption of the emergency currency authorized by the act worked. The handling of Series of 1882 and 1902 date back notes authorized by the act imposed new challenges on the Treasury, the solutions for which were either spelled out in the authorizing legislation or policies implemented by Treasury officials during their use. There were three important new considerations. (1) How were the new notes to be phased in? (2) How did the act provide for the notes to be readily available on short notice to the subscribing banks? (3) How did Treasury attempt to avoid wasting perfectly good sheets that were returned when the bankers redeemed their emergency emissions? The procedures associated with items 1 and 2 above were spelled out in the Aldrich- Vreeland Act. Item 3 was handled through a Treasury Department policy decision. This article naturally lends itself to a three-part structure defined by the protocols that governed how the emergency currency was handled. Terminology Aldrich-Vreeland Emergency Currency Act, named for the sponsors of the act, is the most commonly used handle attached to the act, as is emergency currency for the currency authorized by it. This nomenclature has been with us since the act was passed. Emergency currency was widely used among the work force of the various Treasury offices including the clerks in the Comptroller’s Issue Division who wrote EC next to entries for the currency in their ledgers. The formal name for the act in the U.S. Statutes is the non-descript “An Act To amend the national banking laws” (Statutes, AV Act). The term additional circulation, referring to currency backed by securities other than U.S. Treasury bonds, was the preferred term by the top Treasury officials and many bankers instead of emergency currency and appeared in Treasury press releases. Of course, the bland term additional circulation was used to avoid alarming a jittery public. For the purposes of this article, Aldrich-Vreeland Act will be used as the title, and emergency currency will be used because that is what the act was about. Besides, emergency currency is far more catchy than additional circulation. Introduction The Treasury Department and the nation’s national banks took extraordinary measures after war broke out in Europe in August 1914 to avert a banking panic in the United States. Using authorities granted by Congress in 1908, and expanded in December of 1913 and again on August 4, 1914, Treasury injected $386 million in emergency currency into the national banking system during the 28-week period spanning August 4, 1914 to February 12, 1915. The largest amount of this money in circulation at any one point was $363 million. (Treasury, 1914, p. 530-531). The mechanism used to create the emergency currency was to allow the bankers to receive additional, but short-term, national bank note issuances using softer securities than U.S. Treasury bonds. These included liens against short-term commercial loans, non-Federal government bonds and other short-term commercial paper that the bankers controlled as backing for loans they made. The emergency currency was taxed at a higher rate than traditional U.S. Treasury bond-secured national bank notes, so there was a strong incentive for the bankers to redeem it as soon as it no longer was needed. As war in Europe became inevitable, it was anticipated that the crisis could lead to bank runs and hoarding of cash with the potential to cripple the U.S. economy. An emergency currency SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 159 infusion under the act began just 8 days after the outbreak of the war, ultimately increasing the outstanding national bank note circulation from $751 million to $1.1 billion dollars, a 50% increase (Treasury, 1915, p. 577). The purpose of the currency was to provide the subscribing banks with liquidity in the form of newly created money. A major value of the emergency currency being made available to the banks was its calming effect on depositors. The emergency currency, which was designed to have a short life, also provided the bankers with a temporary pool of funds that offset money withdrawn from commerce through hoarding.by the public. Thus, the emergency currency afforded bankers the opportunity to make short-term loans required to keep the economy humming when it was needed most to tame jittery nerves. The collateral backing those loans served as the security backing the emergency currency, Banking Panic in Europe World War I began in Europe on July 28, 1914 when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. This set off a chain reaction of war declarations across the continent. Germany invaded Belgium on August 4th. Unease in European banks had begun earlier that summer after Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated on June 28. Full-scale bank runs ensued in Berlin, Paris and other European cities (Hepburn, 1914, p. 437; NYT, Jul 28, 1914 & Aug 7,1914). Figures 1 and 2. As war broke out, European depositors feared for their savings. At top, a crowd gathers outside the Bank of France in Paris. At bottom, a run on a Berlin bank after Germany’s war declaration. Similar desperate scenes played out in other European cities. Library of Congress photos LCN 2014697205 and 2014697046. Figures 1 and 2. As war broke out, European depositors feared for their savings. At top, a crowd gathers outside the Bank of France in Paris. At bottom, a run on a Berlin bank after Germany’s war declaration. Similar desperate scenes played out in other European cities. Library of Congress photos LCN 2014697205 and 2014697046. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 160 Congress and the U.S. Treasury Department were determined not to let the European banking contagion spread to the United States. Treasury officials were already well aware of the looming as the European nations had spent the summer liquidating their securities in the United States for gold, thus drawing Treasury gold supplies to ominously low levels (Treasury, 1914, p. 34; Hepburn, p. 434, 438). American commercial banking would be next to feel the strain. Fortunately, the Treasury Department had the tool it needed in the Aldrich-Vreeland Act to avoid a crisis at home. The Aldrich-Vreeland Act The Aldrich-Vreeland Act was passed May 30, 1908 in the wake of the disastrous Panic of 1907 during which the inability of the Treasury to forestall an all-out monetary crisis was laid bare. Instead of the Treasury stepping up, New York banker J.P. Morgan mobilized a rescue of the economy from total collapse. The 1908 Aldrich-Vreeland Act rather clumsily introduced elasticity into the national bank note supply. Elasticity is the ability of a class of currency to expand or contract as economic conditions warrant without disruption of the economy. The act was viewed in Congress as an experiment. Thus, it came with a sunset provision where its terms expired on June 30, 1914 (Statutes, AV Act, Sec. 20). The emergency provisions in the Aldrich- Vreeland Act lay dormant for six years because no dire financial stress materialized and the tax rates on the emergency currency were sufficiently high that they deterred bankers from casual use of the authority. The Federal Reserve Act was signed December 23, 1913 by Woodrow Wilson, a landmark achievement that gave the nation a true elastic currency (Meltzer, 2003, p. 69-71; Malburn, Feb 18, 1915). Congress and Treasury anticipated a gradual start- up for the new system so fortunately included in the Federal Reserve Act was a provision that extended the Figure 3. The date back national bank note design had been introduced by Treasury after the passage by Congress of the Aldrich-Vreeland Act in 1908. Both Series of 1882 and Series of 1902 date backs were issued. However, none were issued as actual emergency currency until the war began in Europe in summer 1914. This particular note is a true emergency note. It was issued to the bank August 10, 1914, in one of several emergency shipments made that August after the bank deposited $1.5 million of “other securities” with the National Currency Association of the Twin Cities, St. Paul, Minnesota. Heritage Auctions Archives photo. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 161 Aldrich-Vreeland Act for another year to June 30, 1915. Thus, the elasticity built into it could serve as a cushion until the Federal Reserve system became operational (Meltzer, 2003, p. 74, 82). The Aldrich-Vreeland Act suddenly came into sharp focus with the outbreak of the European war. On August 4, 1914, Congress hastily passed an amendment that liberalized its terms. Key provisions were that the limit on the emergency currency that could be created was raised from $500 million to $1 billion and the tax rate on it was reduced. Unlike the Panic of 1907, this time the Treasury was prepared. National banks would ameliorate the risk of a potentially crippling monetary stringency in 1914 through the timely infusion of emergency currency. Other actions were taken as well, among them closing the Stock Exchange until December 1914 and expanding use of New York clearing-house loan certificates (Kane, 1922, p. 446-447). National Banking Associations Treasury officials were prescient enough as the Aldrich-Vreeland Act was being drafted to comprehend that a serious emergency would overwhelm Treasury’s ability to manage a solution. Accordingly, the act brought the national banks into the equation with a broader role than they played in their ordinary national bank note issuances. Two means were made available for national bankers to obtain emergency currency. The preferred was to join a regional National Currency Association, which had the authority to accept from the bank a broad range of financial instruments to back its emergency currency. The association would vet the quality of the security deposit and hold it in trust for the United States. The other option was for an individual bank to deposit non-Federal bonds directly with the U.S. Treasurer. In the end, less than $1 million of the $386 million in emergency currency was backed by individual bank deposits with the U.S. Treasurer (Treasury, 1915, p. 577). The heavy lifting was accomplished through the regional associations. Several national currency associations were formed in 1908, but they were inactive owing to lack of need. By January 1914, only 21 had been organized. However, as European tensions intensified, their number ballooned to 45. Forty-one ultimately applied for emergency currency on behalf of their members. Nine states had no representation; specifically, Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, Delaware, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Nevada. (Williams, 1915, p. 45). Out of a national total of 7,578 national banks 2,197 had association memberships, of which 1,359 received emergency currency. (Williams, 1914, p. 62; Treasury,1915, p. 531). Other Securities The following types of securities were permitted to back the emergency currency as specified in regulations promulgated by the Treasury Department: commercial paper up to 75% of cash value; state, city, town, county or other municipal bonds up to 85% of value; miscellaneous securities up to 75% of value; and warehouse receipts up to 75% of value (Treasury, 1915, p. 578). Warehouse receipts were very important to southern bankers who carried large loans on cotton and tobacco. The southern economy would have been at significant risk had the Treasury not made provisions for the bankers to back emergency currency with warehouse receipts even though they ultimately represented only $6 million in emergency currency issues (Treasury, 1914, p. 531). Treasury Secretary William McAdoo issued the following statement on August 27, 1914. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 162 Figure 4. The national banks had to formally apply to Treasury to form a national currency association. Above is part of the first page of the certificate signed by the presidents of the national banks joining the Twin Cities, Minnesota, association. The associations were responsible for verifying the value of the “other securities” placed on deposit with them for emergency circulation. BPD (1914-1915). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 163 Among the eligible securities to be used as a basis for the issue of currency I have decided to accept from national banks, through their respective national currency associations, notes secured by warehouse receipts for cotton or tobacco having not more than four months to run, at 75 per cent of their face value. * * * This plan ought to enable the farmers to pick and market the cotton crop if the bankers, merchants, and cotton manufacturers will cooperate with each other and with the farmers, and will avail of the relief offered by the Treasury within reasonable limits. Such cooperation is earnestly urged upon all these interests. (Treasury, 1914, p. 11). Emergency Currency Design Changes It is crucial to recognize at the outset that the Aldrich-Vreeland Act was introducing a new class of national bank notes that were secured by financial instruments that were classified as inferior to United States bonds. As such, Section 11 of the act required that the notes be redesigned to incorporate language to this effect as follows. In order to furnish suitable notes for circulation, the Comptroller of the Currency shall, under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, cause plates and dies to be engraved * * *,and shall have printed therefrom, and numbered, such quantities of circulating notes, in blank of the denominations of five dollars, ten dollars, twenty dollar, fifty dollars, one hundred dollars, five hundred dollar, one thousand dollars, and ten thousand dollars. * * * Such notes shall state upon their face that they are secured by United States bonds or other securities. Then-Secretary of the Treasury George Cortelou also instructed the BEP to alter the back designs to further differentiate the notes. Thus, were born the Series of 1882 and Series of 1902 designs known to numismatists as date backs, because they respectively carried “1882-1908” or “1902-1908” boldly on their backs (Treasury, 1908, p. 45-46). Furthermore, the act required that stocks of the emergency notes be printed for every national bank so they could be available on short notice, the following also from Section 11. The Comptroller of the Currency * * * shall as soon as practicable cause to be prepared circulating notes * * * equal to fifty per centum of the capital stock of each national banking association. However, there was no way to predict which national banks would subscribe for Figure 5. Cotton warehouse receipts were acceptable “other securities” that could be used as backing for emergency currency. These were of particular importance to the southern currency associations. This is the top part of a warehouse receipt widely used by Texas growers. BPD (1914-1915). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 164 emergency currency. Consequently, all the issuing banks received the new currency whether the bankers subscribed for it or not. The legality of allowing the use of the new currency for all banks was justified by acknowledging that if the new notes were issued from banks solely with conventional United States bond backing, no harm would be inflicted on the note holder because that backing was superior to the “or other securities” specified on the notes (Malburn, Mar 12, 1915). This view also dispensed with the practical problems associated with simultaneously issuing two different varieties of notes to the same bank, one for their U.S. bond-secured notes and the other for their “or other securities” notes. The crash printing of the required stockpile of date notes placed an enormous burden on the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Nearly 10,000 face plates had to be altered to carry the “or other securities” clause. New back plates of the date back designs had to be created and made for the Series of 1882. Dates had to be added to existing Series of 1902 back plates as well as new back plates that were made. In all, the Bureau turned out half a billion dollars’ worth of date backs to satisfy this requirement in fiscal year 1909 (Ralph, 1909, p. 4). This volume was produced on top of the quarter billion-dollar normal printing of national bank notes during that period. Consequently, the volume of national bank notes printed during fiscal year 1909 tripled over 1908. Protocol 1: Phasing-in the Date Back Notes “The Comptroller of the Currency may issue national bank notes of the present form until plates can be prepared and circulating notes issued. * * * That in no event shall bank notes of the present form be issued to any bank as additional circulation provided for by this Act” (Statutes, AV Act, Section 11). The first date back Series of 1882 and 1902 notes were delivered to the Comptroller of the Currency’s office from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing on August 1 and June 15, 1908, respectively. The last printings of the predecessor Series of 1882 brown backs and 1902 red seals arrived on March 23, 1909 and December 15, 1908, respectively (Huntoon, chapter E1). Following protocol, the Comptroller’s office continued to issue the 1882 brown back and 1902 red seals to the banks until those stocks ran out unless the bank subscribed for emergency currency. During that era, the Comptroller’s stock of sheets used to replace worn notes withdrawn from circulation typically averaged about a years’ worth of notes. Consequently, for the majority of banks, their stock of the old variety was depleted before the end of 1909. Of course, the dates of depletion varied between the banks. Similarly, the dates of depletion of the different sheet combinations for a given bank that used more than one combination also varied. A good example is from The Stock Growers National Bank of Cheyenne, Wyoming, charter 2652. The last 5-5-5-5 and 10-10-10-20 brown back sheets were sent to the bank on February 15, 1909 and June 25, 1908 respectively; the first of the 1882 date backs on February 15, 1909 and October 19. 1908. Between June 1908 and February 1909, shipments to the bank consisted of a mix of 1882 5-5-5-5 brown back and 1882 date back 10-10- 10-20 sheets, sometimes in the same shipment. (CofC, 1863-1935). Important in this context is that the first draw for emergency currency occurred on August 4, 1914. No banks have been identified for which stocks of 1882 brown backs or 1902 red seals lasted that long. If such cases do exist, the changeover to the date backs would have occurred with the first shipment of emergency currency to the bank as per protocol. A factual irony is that all the date back notes that entered circulation between 1908 and August 1914 were 100% U.S. bond-secured notes no different in legal standing than the Series of 1882 brown backs and Series 1902 red seals that they succeeded. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 165 The $500,000,000 Stockpile The half billion dollars’ worth of Series of 1882 and 1902 date back notes printed to create the stockpile of emergency currency deserves attention. The initial stockpile consisted of individual printings for each issuing national bank amounting to 50 percent of their capital stock. It was printed in fiscal year 1909. At that time, the sheets were delivered to the Comptroller of the Currency’s office in Washington, DC where the printings were added in sequence to the remaining pre-date back varieties maintained for each bank. This was not a static inventory of currency locked away in some Treasury vault. Rather, it was a fluid working trove that was continuously tapped and replenished. The inventories for the individual banks continued to be drawn down in sequential order as notes were needed to replace worn notes withdrawn from circulation and for routine increases of bank circulation. Inventories also were created for new banks. The Comptroller’s clerks continually ordered new printings that were appended to the bank inventories to offset the draws in order to maintain the dollar value of the stockpile. Those demands totaled an average of $472 million per fiscal year during fiscal years 1910 through 1914. This meant that the half billion-dollar stockpile was in fact almost turning over each fiscal year. Figure 6. Vault #10, one of the Comptroller’s Issue Division vaults. National bank note sheets totaled $250 million in the vault at the time of this 1914 photo. The sheets are wrapped in heavy brown paper for protection. Charter numbers are penciled on the ends of the packages for ease of retrieval by the vault clerks. Orders of emergency currency from August to October 1914 packed vaults like this unless the sheets were shipped directly to a subtreasuries. Library of Congress photo LCN 2016852709. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 166 Consequently, when the stockpile was called upon in August 1914, most of the notes in it had been printed within fiscal year 1914, not 1909. One of the issues faced by Treasury was that its half billion-dollar stockpile in August 1914 was heavily weighted with inventories for 6,219 banks that didn’t subscribe for emergency currency. The primary users of it among the 1,363 banks that did subscribe were big city banks. However, the part of the stockpile carried for the large banks proved to be sorely inadequate. Consequently, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing was continually pressed to execute rush orders to cover those deficiencies, which ultimately totaled about $300 million. Those rush orders amounted to 3/5ths of the value of the stockpile. Protocol 2: Available on Short Notice “[Date back] notes to be deposited in the Treasury or in the subtreasury of the United States nearest the place of business of each association, and to be held for such association, subject to the order of the Comptroller of the Currency, for their delivery” (Statutes, AV Act, Section 11). Traditionally, printings of national bank notes were received by and stored at the Comptroller of the Currency’s vaults in the main Treasury building in Washington, DC. Shipments to the banks were made from there as required. The framers of the Aldrich-Vreeland Act wanted to speed delivery of the emergency currency to the banks. To cut transit time, they wanted the stocks to be moved as close to the banks as possible, but still held under the control of the Treasury until requisitioned. Storage of the notes at the existing subtreasuries around the country satisfied this objective. The Treasury Department operated nine regional subtreasuries to help it issue and redeem currency. They were located in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans and San Francisco. Each was administered by an Assistant Treasurer (Treasury, 1920, p. 167-169). The hastily printed half billion dollars’ worth of date backs during fiscal year 1909 were delivered to the Comptroller’s office. There is no evidence that any of this stockpile was distributed to the subtreasuries before 1914. Treasury officials did not violate the Aldrich-Vreeland Act by not immediately moving the date backs to the subtreasuries. Instead, they used a technicality afforded by a careful reading of the act to delay doing so. Specifically, the language in the act was “to be deposited in the Treasury or in the subtreasury” (Statutes, AV Act, Section 9). The operative word was “or.” The $500,000,000 in the Comptroller’s vaults in Washington was in the Treasury so it satisfied the language of the act. The Treasury mobilized as war clouds gathered over Europe. A Treasury press release on July 31, 1914 advised “We are keeping in touch with the situation. The Treasury Department will help as far as it legitimately may in New York or any other part of the country where it becomes apparent assistance is needed. * * * It must be remembered that there is in the Treasury [in Washington], printed and ready for issue, $500,000,000 of currency, which the banks can get upon application under law” (Treasury, 1914, p. 2; NYT, Aug 1, 1914). Pre-staging sheets in the subtreasuries did not begin until August 4th... On August 3rd Treasury Assistant Secretaries Charles Sumner Hamlin and William Peabody Malburn, as well as Comptroller of the Currency John Skelton Williams were on duty at the New York subtreasury to emphasize that the Treasury was ready to assist the banks with SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 167 emergency currency (Treasury, 1914, p. 3). On August 4 some $40-$50 million was delivered to the New York subtreasury in a caravan of 20 large mail trucks as crowds gathered to watch (NYT, Aug 4, 1914). The first emergency issues went out immediately from the New York subtreasury. From August 4 forward, subscriptions for the emergency currency were hastily sent to the banks from every source possible. This procedure was new to the bookkeepers in the Comptroller’s office. They were simultaneously logging out shipments to a given bank from the subtreasuries as well as from their own vault in Washington as fast as they received new printings from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The exigencies of the times required the Bookkeeping Division in the Comptroller’s Office to adapt to the chaos. As shown on Figure 7, the task of tracking shipments of large amounts of emergency currency was daunting and anything but orderly. Bookkeeping staff worked overtime to keep up. They not only had to record the issuances of emergency currency from the subtreasuries and their own office, but also shipments from the issue division that covered replacements for worn notes withdrawn from circulation. Under ordinary circumstances, the Comptroller’s Issue Division vault personnel maintained the issuance of national currency within their ledgers in bank sheet serial number order for each sheet combination used by the bank. That tidiness went out the window with the Figure 7. National Currency and Bond ledger page showing the massive emergency issues (black ink entries at left) to The Merchants National Bank of St. Paul, charter 2020. The clerks offen marked the emergency currency issues with the notation “EC” (see arrow), although this practice was not universal. The bond ledger at top shows that the bank deposited miscellaneous securities on August 12 and September 30 totaling $1.67 million dollars in order to receive emergency currency. The red ink entries at right are pre-war redemptions without reissue during a pre-war period when the bond- secured circulation had been cut from from $1,000,000 in 1912 to $275,000 in 1913. The emergency infusion ballooned the circulation to over $1 million in 1914, after which it settled to $375,000 by 1915. CofC (1863-1935). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 168 emergency currency. New to them was that the sheets were no longer going out in numerical order, which made their ledgers messy and harder to prove. Heavy reliance was made on dollar totals rather than sheet serial numbers. In some cases, desperate clerks drew arrows connecting the entries with consecutive serial numbers to demonstrate that all the serial numbers had in fact been delivered during some period of interest (CofC, 1914). The poor clerks were pushed into overdrive. As one example, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing ordinarily delivered new sheets to the Comptroller’s office once or twice a month for The Merchants National Bank of St. Paul, Minnesota. When those bankers applied for emergency currency at the start of the war, the BEP was making up to three shipments a day to the Comptroller’s office for the bank. The daily highpoint was September 29th when four separate deliveries of $5 arrived, 4,000 sheets in all. Multiply this by the needs of hundreds of rush orders for subscribing banks per day and you get the picture. Many clerks resorted to helpful short-hand notations such as adding “EC” for emergency currency from Washington or “EC–Asst Treasurer” from a subtreasury. Some also flagged the shipments containing replacements for worn notes from the bank’s bond secured circulation with the notation “US Bonds.” The clerks came back later to make recapitulation entries on the ledgers for the larger banks to prove that all the available sheets had been found and shipped from both Washington and the subtreasuries (CofC, 1914-5). Protocol 3: Returned and Redeposited Sheets Sheets of national bank notes returned to the Treasury to redeem emergency currency by the issuing bank could be redeposited in the Comptroller of the Currency’s inventory for reissue to the bank (Treasury policy adopted in November, 1915). Prior to enactment of the Aldrich-Vreeland Act, national bankers desiring to redeem part or all of their circulation were required to deposit lawful money with the U.S. Treasurer that was placed in a retirement fund managed by his office to redeem a like amount of the bank’s notes from circulation. At the time the Aldrich-Vreeland Act was passed, Congress had defined through past legislation that lawful money consisted of gold coin, legal tender notes, silver certificates and gold certificates. National bank notes were not considered lawful money under national banking law. However, a critical provision in Section 10 of the Aldrich-Vreeland Act authorized the use of national bank notes as well as lawful money for the redemption of the emergency currency as follows. Any national banking association desiring to withdraw any of its circulating notes, secured by the deposit of securities other than bonds of the United States, may make such withdrawals at any time in like manner and effect by the deposit of lawful money or national bank notes with the Treasurer of the United States. This was an extremely important provision. Without it, if banks could only use lawful money to retire their emergency notes, the massive withdrawal of lawful money from circulation would worsen the very crises the Aldrich-Vreeland Act was supposed to cure. It was roughly the third week of October 1914 when the banks began to redeem their emergency currency in large quantities, no doubt spurred on by a looming accounting of the first quarterly tax installments due on the notes. Using gold coin and gold certificates, silver certificates, legal tender notes, and increasing numbers of national bank notes, the retirement deposits grew larger almost daily into November and December, often totaling several million dollars per day (BPD, 1914-1915). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 169 Under Section 10 of the Aldrich-Vreeland Act, the national bank notes deposited to retire a bank’s emergency circulation could be the bank’s own notes or notes of any other national bank. Deposits could be sent either via the local subtreasury or directly to the National Bank Redemption Agency in Washington. In due course, as bankers retired their emergency currency circulations, many sent back unused sheets of their own emergency currency. Ordinarily, when the circulation of a bank was being retired in whole or part, retired notes were canceled and destroyed after receipt by the National Bank Redemption Agency. However, after the unused sheets started to come back in large numbers, conscientious Treasury operatives deemed the practice of canceling the sheets as wasteful so Treasury officials adopted a policy whereby the unused sheets could be redeposited with the Comptroller for future reissue. Figure 8. A Treasury daily redemption report listing banks that were returning sheets of their own emergency currency that were being redeposited for reissue with the Comptroller of the Currency. The redeposited sheets disrupted the tidy serial number tracking procedure normally used by the vault clerks and bookkeepers. BPD (1914-1915). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 170 I was unable to find a specific Treasury directive addressing the redeposit of redeemed sheets. However, a review of multiple ledgers covering hundreds of banks from summer 1914 to summer 1915 revealed the earliest redeposits began November 27, 1914 and the latest found was on April 10, 1915. That particular April 10th redeposit consisted of $11,050 in sheets for The City National Bank of Paducah, Kentucky, charter 2093. The redeposited sheets were treated in the National Currency and Bond Ledgers identically as new currency received from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing except, they were logged in by dollar value because the sheets usually were not in serial number order. They generally, but not universally, became the next sheets issued from the vault inventory until consumed. Virtually all the redeposited sheets reappeared as bond-secured notes. In one example, The Farmers and Mechanics National Bank of Georgetown, DC, charter 1928, maintained a bond-secured circulation of $250,000 before the war. In mid-August 1914, the bankers deposited $25,000 of “other securities” and received 500 sheets of emergency currency in the form of 10-10-10-20 Series of 1902 date back sheets. On November 28, they returned all 500 sheets to retire their emergency currency. Starting December 7, 1914, and continuing through January 22, 1915, shipments from the Issue Division to replace worn notes for the bank’s bond-secured circulation consisted of the 500 redeposited sheets. They were the first to go after being redeposited. See Figure 9. Figure 9. The right arrow points to the redemption entry where The Farmers & Merchants National Bank, Georgetown, D.C., returned its entire emergency currency issue of $25,000 on November 28, 1914. The arrow at left shows the same sheets being sent back to the bank in December and January, this time as regular bond-backed date back notes. The tell-tale sign is that the reissue entries at left are devoid of serial numbers because the sheets often were not in serial number order and also to avoid recording the same serial numbers twice. CofC 1863-1935). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 171 The redeposits for a few banks outlived the large note era without being fully consumed as reissues. Victory Lap As the European war and banking crisis crept to America’s doorstep, the Aldrich-Vreeland Act as amended in 1913 and 1914 proved to be an example of the government getting things right. A repeat of the Panic of 1907 was averted. Whatever the impact of the coming war, widespread bank failures and financial panic in the United States was not a part of it. Starting in August 1914 and continuing through Spring 1915, Malburn mobilized the Treasury and subtreasuries to do meticulous daily reporting on the emergency currency being issued and then being retired (BPD, 1914-1915). Although it was labor intensive to do so, Malburn wanted to closely track how the currency was being used and to ensure it was being redeemed as soon as it wasn’t needed. McAdoo and Malburn knew the Wilson Administration’s political opponents would pounce the moment they could allege there were unnecessary inflationary notes swelling the nation’s money supply. As it turned out, the higher tax rates on the emergency currency worked exactly as designed to force the prompt redemption of the unneeded emergency currency. Some bankers returned most or all their emergency currency before it was circulated. Simply having it in their vaults and teller cages was enough to quell the angst of their depositors. The needed liquidity was on hand for short-term commercial loans including loans needed to Figure 10. Treasurer of the U.S. John Burke at left, Treasury Assistant Secretary William P. Malburn at right. Malburn had the significant policy and operational responsibility for emergency currency issue and redemption. He was visible to the public, press, and banking community throughout the crisis. Burke’s National Bank Redemption Agency shouldered the enormous redemption workload with the subtreasury offices. Library of Congress photoh LCN 2016853719. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 172 facilitate agricultural harvests. The economy had in-hand the money it needed to jumpstart our preparations for the coming war. The news media, particularly the financial press, tracked the emergency currency situation closely. Malburn must have been gratified with a February New York Times headline that declared “Emergency Notes All In; Books Close” for the National Currency Association of New York (NYT, Feb 10, 1915). By mid-February less than 10 per cent of the total emergency currency issued since August remained outstanding (NYT, Feb 19, 1915). The conservative Commercial & Financial Chronicle opined in February 1915 that the Aldrich-Vreeland Act, set to expire on June 30, 1915, should be extended for “another year or two, and possibly indefinitely. * * * Thus the Aldrich-Vreeland law provides the means for much more effective action than the Federal Reserve Law, and also on a larger scale” (Chronicle, Feb 13, 1915). The Chronicle reasoned that since the Aldrich-Vreeland Act permitted a broader range of “other securities” as collateral for emergency notes than permitted with Federal Reserve notes, the Aldrich-Vreeland notes would be more effective. Treasury and Congress differed, however, and the Aldrich-Vreeland Act expired at the end of June. Future crises would be handled by the Federal Reserve system. By July 1, 1915, all but approximately $172,000 from a failed bank in Pennsylvania of the $386 million in emergency currency had been retired. Malburn himself had the last word on the emergency issues, writing the following in 1915 after more than 90 percent of the notes had been retired. It is evident that any fears that have been entertained that the large amount of additional currency put in circulation after August 1, 1914, would unduly inflate the circulation, and would not be promptly retired, may be dismissed. * * * Without doubt the issuance of this currency enabled the country to pass through the troublous times succeeding the outbreak of the European war last Summer, with much less strain than has attended financial disturbances of less severity in the past, and it is shown how advantageously the Federal reserve notes may be used in the future.” (Melburn, February 18, 1915). Acknowledgments The Bureau of Public Debt documents that formed the basis for this article are from the Retired Currency of 1914-1915 files, Record Group 53, Entry 545 housed at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland, full citation below. Peter Huntoon provided the delivery data for the Stock Growers National Bank of Cheyenne and made valuable manuscript suggestions. Fred Maples provided timely assistance pertaining to Maryland national bank ledger pages. Sources Bureau of the Public Debt, 1914-1915, Records regarding destruction of retired currency: Record Group 53, Entry 545, file 1 – Reports of Deposits Made on Account Retirement Additional Circulation 1914, and file 2 – National Currency Emergency Association - Emergency (53/450/53/21/3 boxes 1 through 3). U.S. National Archives, College Park, MD. Commercial & Financial Chronicle, Feb 13, 1915, The Financial Situation: William B. Dana Company, New York, NY. v. 100, p. 500. Comptroller of the Currency, 1863-1935, Division of Issues, National Currency and Bond Ledgers: Record Group 101, Entry UD-14, National Archives, College Park, MD. Encyclopedia of U.S. National Bank Notes: Society of Paper Money Collectors: https://spmcsponsor.mywikis.wiki/w/index.php?title=Encyclopedia_of_U.S._National_Bank_Notes&oldid=121 Hepburn, A. Barton, 1915, A History of the Currency in the United States. The McMillan Company, New York, NY, 573 p. Huntoon, Peter W. The Aldrich-Vreeland Act and Series of 1882 and 1902 Date Back National Bank Notes: Huntoon- Shiva Encyclopedia of U.S. National Bank Notes, chapter E1. (See Encyclopedia citation above). Huntoon, Peter W. The National Bank Note Series 1882 and 1902 Post-Date Back Transition, Huntoon-Shiva Encyclopedia of U.S. National Bank Notes, chapter E2. (See Encyclopedia citation above). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 173 Kane, Thomas P., 1922, The Romance and Tragedy of Banking: The Bankers Publishing Company, New York, NY, 549 p. Malburn, William P., February 18, 1915, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury press release pertaining to redemption of emergency currency. Malburn, William P., March 12, 1915, Letter from Assistant Secretary of the Treasury to Joseph E. Ralph, Director, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, authorizing that “or other securities” plates may be used until exhausted: Bureau of the Public Debt, Record Group 53, 450/54/1/5, box 10, file K712, National Archives, College Park, MD. Meltzer, Allan H. A., 2003, History of the Federal Reserve, Volume 1: 1913-1951: University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. New York Times, July 28, 1914, Run on Berlin Banks: p.2; August 1, 1914, Washington Alert to Aid Situation: p. 5; August 4, 1914, Provision for a Billion More Money – Emergency Currency Here: p. 4; August 7, 1914, Armored Cruiser Sails with Gold for Stranded Americans: p. 4; August 28, 1914, M’Adoo Draws Pan for Moving Cotton, p. 11; February 10, 1915 Emergency Notes All In; Books Close: p. 15; Retire Emergency Money, February 19, 1915: p. 13. New York Times, New York, NY. Ralph, Joseph E., 1909, Annual Report of the Director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1909: Government Printing Office, Washington DC. Statutes, U.S.: Aldrich-Vreeland Act, May 30, 1908, An Act to Amend the National Banking Laws: U.S. Statutes, P.L. 60-169, 35 Stat 546, 60th Congress, 1stt Session; Federal Reserve Act of December 23,1913, P.L. 63-43, 63rd Congress; & Federal Reserve Act Amendment, August 4, 1914, P.L. 63-163, 13 Stat. 682, 63rd Congress, 2 Session. Treasury, U.S., 1908, 1914, 1915, & 1920, Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury on the State of the Finances: Government Printing Office, Washington, DC Williams, John Skelton, 1914 & 1915, Annual Reports of the Comptroller of the Currency: Government Printing Office, Washington, DC. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 174 Aldrich-Vreeland Emergency Currency Photo Gallery Figures A. While Treasury’s use of the Alrich-Vreeland Act emergency currency successfully prevented Europe’s bank panics spreading to the U.S., there were isolated incidents. Here, the German Savings Bank in New York City has a run by its depositors on August 3, 1914. American citizens of German decent and recent immigrants were closely watching the banking panic in their former home country. In this case, the catgion spread, but fortunately such incidents in the U.S. were rare. Hoarding was commonplace, but bank runs were not, in large part due to Treasury and the national banks having ample emergency currency supplies available. Photos: CNN top left; Google top right; Library of Congress LCN 2014696884 bottom. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 175 Figure B. As the war broke out in Europe, hundreds of U.S. bankers sought to quickly join National Currency Associations. Worried about the time it would take banks to apply individually for membership, Treasury Assistant Secretary Charles Sumner Hamlin stepped in to expedite the process and reassure bankers seeking emergency currency that it would not be delayed. This telegram from the National Currency Association of Dallas expresses the Association’s delight at being told by Treasury to open its membership to all sound national banks in the district. BPD (1914- 1915). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 176 Figures C. The interest in obtaining emergency currency extended beyond national banks. At top, A.J. Moore, the president of the First State Bank of Bonham, Texas, sought to join the Dallas National Currency Association. The Association sought Treasury’s ruling on whether that was permissible. Assistant Secretary Malburn replied at bottom, saying to Moore that memberships would not be extended to state banks and trust companies. BPD (1914-1915). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 177 Figure D. National banks subscribed for their emergency currency via the National Currency Assocation to which they belonged. Banks first placed “other securities” on deposit with their Association. Upon the Association validating the value of the securities, the Association would place an order for emergency currency on behalf of the bank with the Comptroller’s office using the form above. Note the use of the formal term “additional circulation” rather than “emergency currency” on the form. BPD (1914-1915). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 178 Figure E. Treasury officials closely tracked the National Currency Associations and their banks applying for emergency currency. Above is page 1 of a long September 10, 1914 report to Treasury senior officials listing subscriptions for emergency currency, the amounts, and deliveries. The “ST” notation for The Kensington National Bank of Philadelphia means the notes were delivered from the Philadelphia subtreasury, not the Comptroller’s Issue Division in Washington. BPD (1914-1915). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 179 Figure F. Another Treasury daily report of emergency currency requests and deliveries. This report shows multiple deliveries from the regional subtreasuries. BPD (1914-1915). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 180 Figure G Enterprise National Bank of Laurens, South Carolina, was one of a handful of banks that issued only emergency currency based on research by Peter Huntoon and Mark Drengson. The bankers never reported a taxable circulation during the ten the ten year life of the bank. They ordered emergency currency in 1914 but retired it before having to report it. Huntoon and Drengson have identified about a dozen banks that similarly issued only emergency currencys. Heritage Auctions archives photo. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 181 Figures H. The emergency currency was shorted lived. The first deliveries were on August 4, 1914, and the last on February 12, 1915. In the third week of October banks began to retire their emergency circulations in enormous amounts each day. Subtreasury offices sent telegrams to the Treasury Department in Washington to report the daily redemption deposits. The telegrams above date from November and December, 1914. BPD (1914-1915). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 182 Figure I. Section 10 of the Aldreich-Vreeland Act allowed emergency circulation to be retired through payment of lawful money or national bank notes. Previously, national bank circulations could not be retired by deposit of national bank notes. Some subtreasury officers and many national bankers were unfamiliar with the provision, so when some banks started to send in national bank notes the subtreasury officers questioned the practice. The telegram above, from October 21, 1914, is one such questioning telegram. BPD (1914-1915). Figure J. In reply to the questions about the legality of accepting national bank notes to retire emergency currency, Treasury Assistant Secretary William P. Malburn cabled the subtreary offices on October 23, 1914 to hold such submissions until further guidance could be issued. BPD (1914-1915). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 183 Figure K. Malburn sent instructions on October 29, 1914 to the subtreasuries making it clear that national bank notes were to be accepted for retirement of emergency currency. The example above went to the Assistant Treasurer at Baltimore, Maryland. BPD (1914-1915). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 184 Figure L. Depsite his October 29 guidance to subtreasuries to accept national bank notes to retire emergency currency, several days later he was still telegramming certain offices confirming the instructions. BPD (1914-1915). Figure M. The notice of receipt for The Hanover National Bank of New York is a good example of the enormous value of national bank notes being used to retire emergency currency, Malburn’s signature on this document reveals his personal involvement in the redemptions process. BPD (1914-1915). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 185 Figure N. First page of a long daily Treasury report sent to Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo from Treasurer John Burke listing deposits to retire emergency currency and the types of money used for the deposits. Imagine $500,000 in gold coins in a single deposit. The page is a good example of the volume and variety of deposits used to quickly retire the emergency notes. See column on right above. BPD (1914- 1915). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 186 Figures O. It was not only large city banks that utilized emergency notes. Here are two small town examples. These national banks in Grapevine, Texas, and Roswell, New Mexico, kept their emergency circulations going into 1915, retiring them respectively in January and June 1915. BPD (1914-1915). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 187 Figure P. Redemption accounting form used by the National Bank Redemption Agency. One of the many complexities in the redemption process was determining if bank notes received for redemption were (1) bond-securedd redemptions requiring replacement notes to be sent out, (2) retirements of notes from out-of-business banks, (3) banks reducing their bond-secured circulations, or (4) banks retiring their emergency currency. The arrow points to the column where emergency currency retirements were recorded. Once notes were sorted by bank and recorded on the above form, the redeemed notes were sent to the Comptroller of the Currency’s Redemption Division for a second confirmation count. Notice that the National Bank Redemption Agency sorting was done alphabetically by the name of the towns on the notes, not charter number. General Records of the Department of the Treasury. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 188 Figure Q. By late fall 1914, millions of unissued sheets of emergency currency remained in the regional subtreasuries. The original cost of shipping the sheets to the subtreasuries had been billed to the banks, but Comptroller of the Currency John Skelton Williams saw a backlash coming if the banks had to pay to ship unrequested sheets back to Washington. Treasury Assistant Secretary Malburn put the question to his departmental attorneys in the Office of the Comptroller of the Treasury. He received the reply he and O’Connor were seeking, namely that it was permissible under the Adrich-Vreeland Act for the government to pay to ship the sheets back to the Issue Division in Washington. BPD (1914-1915). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 189 Figure R. The full story behind this $50 Series of 1882 date back note is one that makes national bank note collecting so enticing. The National Marine Bank of Baltimore nearly doubled its circulation in 1914 using “other securities” as collateral when the war broke out. The BEP went into overdrive to deliver additional vault stock for the bank with one thousand sheets of 50-50-50-100 notes being delivered to the Comptroller’s Issue Division on August 17, 1914 bearing bank serials 301 to 1300. That delivery included this note with bank serial 500. However, the $50 and $100 emergency currency issued to the bank ended with the sheet 405 on September 1. The rest of its emergency currency consisted of $5, $10 and $20 notes, the last of which were sent November 21st. The bankers then retired all their emergency circulation between November 23, 1914 and January 23, 1915. Sheet 500 containing this note was sent to the bank July 12, 1915 as a bond-secured note. Heritage Auctions archives photo. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 190 Postscript Treasury Entry Pivots from Emergency Currency to Financing America’s into the War Figure S. The Aldrich-Vreeland emergency currency allowed the Treasury in 1914 and 1915 to avoid the banking panics that plagued Europe as war broke out. Meanwhile, President Woodrow Wilson sought to keep America out of the war. By 1917, Wilson and Congress knew entering the war was inevitable. Above, the American Rainbow Division enters St. Nazaire, France, November 3, 1917. The job of the U.S. Treasury shifted from emergency currency to financing the U.S. war effort through Liberty Loans. Library of Congress photo LCN 2014706754. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 191 Figures T. Treasury’s work to finance the American war effort was essential to the country’s success. Treasury Secretary McAdoo was committed to financing the war through borrowing, not printing greenbacks. The Liberty Loans and later Victory Loan effort were the result. At top, a Liberty Bond poster adorns the corner sidewalk outside the Treasury Department in 1917. At bottom, Treasury workers and Army representatives prepare for a bond drive on Treasury’s steps by displaying captured German helmets. Library of Congress photos LCN 2016868455 and LCN 2016819648. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 192 Figures U. Liberty Loan Posters were part of a massive advertising campaign that helped raise the money to financed the American war effort. At top, a poster that dispayed the Treasury Department itself. Library of Congress photos LCN 2001695789, LCN 00652903 and LCN 00652888. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 193 Figure V. First Liberty Loan of 1917 $100 4 percent coupon bond. The Bureau of Printing and Engraving went from producing millions of sheets of emergency currency to cranking out millions of Liberty Loan bonds. Herbstman Collection of American Finance photo. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 194 Shop Live 24/7 Scan for $10 off your first purchase whatnot.com Lyn Knight Currency Auct ions If you are buying notes... You’ll find a spectacular selection of rare and unusual currency offered for sale in each and every auction presented by Lyn Knight Currency Auctions. Our auctions are conducted throughout the year on a quarterly basis and each auction is supported by a beautiful “grand format” catalog, featuring lavish descriptions and high quality photography of the lots. Annual Catalog Subscription (4 catalogs) $50 Call today to order your subscription! 800-243-5211 If you are selling notes... Lyn Knight Currency Auctions has handled virtually every great United States currency rarity. We can sell all of your notes! Colonial Currency... Obsolete Currency... Fractional Currency... Encased Postage... Confederate Currency... United States Large and Small Size Currency... National Bank Notes... Error Notes... Military Payment Certificates (MPC)... as well as Canadian Bank Notes and scarce Foreign Bank Notes. We offer: Great Commission Rates Cash Advances Expert Cataloging Beautiful Catalogs Call or send your notes today! If your collection warrants, we will be happy to travel to your location and review your notes. 800-243-5211 Mail notes to: Lyn Knight Currency Auctions P.O. Box 7364, Overland Park, KS 66207-0364 We strongly recommend that you send your material via USPS Registered Mail insured for its full value. Prior to mailing material, please make a complete listing, including photocopies of the note(s), for your records. We will acknowledge receipt of your material upon its arrival. If you have a question about currency, call Lyn Knight. He looks forward to assisting you. 800-243-5211 - 913-338-3779 - Fax 913-338-4754 Email: lyn@lynknight.com - support@lynknight.c om Whether you’re buying or selling, visit our website: www.lynknight.com Fr. 379a $1,000 1890 T.N. Grand Watermelon Sold for $1,092,500 Fr. 183c $500 1863 L.T. Sold for $621,000 Fr. 328 $50 1880 S.C. Sold for $287,500 Lyn Knight Currency Auctions Deal with the Leading Auction Company in United States Currency Lee Lofthus Peter Huntoon Derek Moffitt Evidence for the Issuance of a $10 Series of 1933A Silver Certificate Sheet complete with serial numbers Hiding —From Us— in Plain Sight No sooner did the March-April 2024 issue of Paper Money get delivered than serial number authority Derek Moffitt, curator of USPaper Money.Info, advised Lofthus and Huntoon that the serial numbers on the $10 Series of 1933 and 1933A silver certificate sheets that we profiled were listed in the Schwartz-Lindquist catalog (2011, p. 349). They were: 1933 A00372001A-A00372012A 1933A A00372013A-A00372024A. Seeing those sheet serials caused the three of us to engage in a two-week scramble to determine where they came from and to reassess the published production and serial number data associated with the 1933 series. We’ll first chase the source and veracity of the sheet serial numbers. Then we will place them into the context of both the timing of Wade’s request for his sheets and their production. We have to assume that you have read our primary article in the March-April 2024 issue of Paper Money that relates how James Wade, one of the foremost early U.S. currency collectors, was able to acquire the two sheets in 1934 through his personal friendship with Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Stephen Gibbons (Lofthus and Huntoon, 2024). The Chuck O’Donnell Connection The Schwartz-Lindquist small note catalog is the lineal successor to a running series of seven catalogs authored by Leon Goodman, John Schwartz and Chuck O’Donnell, first published in 1968. The 3rd edition featured a listing of small-size sheets that had been delivered to the U.S. Treasurer that O’Donnell had compiled from Bureau of Engraving and Printing records. The 1933 and 1933A sheet serial numbers first appeared in that listing (GSO, 1971, p. 101). Including sheet serial numbers gleaned from BEP records set the Goodman-Schwartz-O’Donnell catalog apart from earlier small-size catalogs such as Donlon (1969). In future editions, O’Donnell meticulously distinguished between delivery of sheets that he recorded from the BEP records as opposed to those reported by collectors and dealers or otherwise pictured or listed elsewhere. The 1933 and 1933A sheets always have been listed by O’Donnell as having come from BEP records, but never as having been reported as owned or observed by a collector or dealer. Consequently, as far as their whereabouts, we are no further along now than where we were in the primary article. That is, we have good evidence that Wade received the sheets in 1934 but then their trail goes cold. It helps flesh out this tale that co-author Huntoon was invited by O’Donnell to accompany him on one of his data collection trips to the BEP sometime around 1969 or 1970. At the time, O’Donnell was compiling data for the 3rd edition. His contact at the BEP was production manager 197 Morton C. Rice. The setup was that Rice had a large sparsely furnished office. As you walked in, you faced his desk where he sat with windows at his back. To the left against a wall was a rather small table with one or two 5-drawer filing cabinets to its right. Next to the door was the only other piece of furniture, a plain wooden straight back chair that faced Rice’s desk. That was where I sat. To my right and to Rice’s left was a door leading to a narrow room about 30 feet long and 10 feet wide bounded by a continuation of the frosted exterior windows on one side and a row of large almost chest-high map cases that lined the opposite wall. These were filled with treasures pulled from the production line dating back to the large note era, but that is another story. The file cabinets housed individual plate record cards and other cards with various summaries. O’Donnell would retrieve a batch of cards, plant himself at the table and use a 1960s vintage electric adding machine to sum the total number of sheets printed for every different small-size type note. This task took many trips from his home in New Jersey. Huntoon didn’t know it at the time, but Rice was letting O’Donnell, an obviously dedicated collector, mine that data for posterity before the records were disposed of. The cards didn’t make it to the National Archives. They were destroyed on-site or went to a landfill once Chuck finished with his work. As Chuck worked, he would occasionally pause to record printings of uncut sheets or other titillating tidbits of information that he came across. It appears obvious that he found the serials for the two 1933 series sheets amongst these records. However, that discovery was not made while Huntoon was with him and Huntoon never heard of him going to the National Archives. Figure 1. A request for uncut sheets by collector James Wade in 1934 resulted in the issuance of a specially prepared sheet for him of $10 Series of 1933A silver certificates that through fate turned out to be the only 12 notes of that variety to be issued. Photo from Bebee (1956). . Figure 2. Small-size currency cataloger Chuck O’Donnell found the serials numbers for Wade’s $10 SC 1933 and 1933A sheets in BEP records. Society of Paper Money Collectors photo. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 198 Production of Wade’s Sheets The published serial numbers on Wade’s sheets make perfect sense. Wade sent his request to his friend Gibbons on March 12, 1934 during the midst of the production of the $10 silver certificate 1933 series. He particularly wanted sheets with Woodin’s signature because Woodin had been a professional and numismatic mentor to him. Assistant Director of the BEP Jesse Swigart advised BEP Director Alvin Hall on April 2 that “Delivery is being made to the Treasurer of the U.S. of one unseparated sheet of [Series of 1933] $10 Silver Certificates with the signatures of Woodin and Julian, and one unseparated sheet of [Series of 1933A] $10 Silver Certificates with signatures of Morgenthau and Julian. These sheets are a part of a package of $10 Silver Certificates delivered today.” Tracking the deliveries of Series 1933 notes using the Treasurer’s receipt ledger reveals the April 2nd delivery referred to by Swigart consisted of 180,000 notes bearing serials A00372001A through A00552000A (Treasurer, 1929-1934). The published serial numbers for Wade’s two sheets represent the first serials in this delivery, which was standard practice when sheets were requested. Sheets such as these two were a nuisance because numbering on their 12 subjects was consecutive. Consequently, the two sheets consumed numbers A00372001A through A00372024A. Each required a custom setup on a numbering press from which the note-separating knives were removed. In contrast, the rest of the 15,000 sheets in the delivery most likely were numbered in large batches. The numbering presses in use printed the seals and serial numbers on a given sheet, separated the notes, collated the notes separately from each half of the sheet, and delivered the collated notes from the halves to collector bins on the respective sides of the press. The serial numbers in a given batch were divided in half. The low numbers were assigned to the left sides of the sheets and high to the right sides. Numbering was from the high to low numbers so the low numbers on each side of a sheet landed on top as the notes were discharged from the sides of the press. The 24 notes with serials that duplicated those on Wade’s sheets were discarded as mutilated. The Series of 1933 and 1933A sheets that led the April 2nd delivery had Julian-Woodin and Julian-Morgenthau signatures, respectively. The 1933A sheet came from current production, which posed no difficulty. However, the 1933 sheet represented a special make-up situation. All production of the Series of 1933 faces was from plate serial 1, which had on-press dates inclusive of January 3 and February 15, 1934. That lone plate was mounted on a 4-plate press, which was the only press dedicated to the 1933 series among the scores of presses in operation. The press could operate with one to four plates. On February 15th, the 1933 plate was swapped Figure 3. The ultimate small-size U.S. type note is a 1933 silver certificate, but imagine having the 12-subject sheet of the otherwise unissued Series of 1933As! Heritage Auction archives photo. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 199 out and replaced by 1933A plate 1. Eventually, in March, 1933A plates 3 and 4 joined 1 on the press and all served until March 30th. (BEP, misc. dates), At no time were 1933 and 1933A plates mixed on the press so the output never consisted of sheets that alternated back and forth between the two varieties. Instead, up to this point, there was a clean break between 1933 and 1933A sheet production. Importantly, when Wade’s 1933 sheet was numbered in April, production from the 1933 face plate had ceased long before. Consequently, the only source for that special sheet had to be from a stock of residual unnumbered 1933 sheets. New Insights For over 50 years multiple numismatic reference catalogs have reported the Series of 1933 serials as A00000001A to A00216000A and the 1933A as A00216001A to A00552000A. Those serials were from a Bureau of Engraving and Printing compilation of deliveries to the U.S. Treasurer prepared years later (BEP, circa 1963). Those presumed ranges were based on the fact that the printings from the 1933 and 1933A face plates were carried out in sequential order without mixing of the plates on the press (BEP, various dates), This yielded a total of 216,000 1933 and 336,000 1933A notes for a series total of 552,000 (U.S. Treasurer, 1929-1934). Swigart (Mar 16, 1934) stated that the first 1933A notes were delivered to the U.S. Treasurer on February 27, 1934. The first 1933A serial is readily calculated using the fact provided by Swigart that the last 24,000 notes in the delivery were 1933As. However, it is now clear that A00216000A claimed as the high serial for the 1933s is correct only for deliveries through the February 27th delivery. The Bureau valued their intaglio sheets very highly, so they carried residual unnumbered stocks forward until it was convenient to slip them into the production stream to be numbered, usually as a discrete group. It was from such a stock that Wade’s 1933 sheet was drawn. Notice that it received out-of-range serials above the starting 1933A serial of A00216001A. Certainly, Wade’s 1933 sheet was not the sole surviving residual. Others probably were numbered and separated into individual notes before production of the series ceased. Any numbered 1933 residuals would have carried serials above A00216000A. Quibbling over the numbering of the residual 1933 stock is academic. Only 184,000 notes were issued to the Treasurer’s operating cash, and just 115,000 or so of those were released into actual circulation (Lofthus, 2014). Currently, the highest reported serial number is 1933 A00138585A (Lofthus, 2024). We have no way to know how many residual 1933 sheets were Table 1. Delivery of $10 1933 series silver certificates to the U.S. Treasurer from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Data from Treasurer (1929-1934). Date Delivered Cumulative Serials in Delivery Significant Items in the Delivery Jan 5, 1934 4,000 4,000 A00000001A-A00004000A 1933 sheet A00000001A-A00000012A subsequently cut apart Jan 6, 1934 4,000 8,000 A00004001A-A00008000A Jan 15, 1934 40,000 48,000 A00008001A-A00048000A Jan 22, 1934 36,000 84,000 A00048001A-A00084000A Jan 30, 1934 36,000 120,000 A00084001A-A00120000A Feb 14, 1934 72,000 192,000 A00120001A-A00192000A Feb 27, 1934 48,000 240,000 A00192001A-A00240000A A00216001A was first 1933A Mar 23, 1934 132,000 372,000 A00240001A-A00372000A Apr 2, 1934 180,000 552,000 A00372001A-A00552000A 1933 sheet A00372000A-A00372012A 1933A sheet A00372013A-A00372024A SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 200 completed with numbers above A00216000A. Conclusion We know just about everything about the $10 Series of 1933 and 1933A sheets that were made for Wade. But our knowledge about the fate of the sheets once Wade obtained them in 1934 goes dark after that. People don’t knowingly throw away money. Sometimes an heir will cut a sheet and spend the notes but even that is unusual. Hmm, where are those sheets today? Sources Bebee, Aubrey E., Mar 1956, The celebrated James M. Wade collection of U.S. paper money (fixed price sale catalog): Bebee’s, Omaha, NE, 43 p. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, circa 1963, Summary compilation of small size notes printed 1928-1950C: Ledgers Pertaining to Plates, Rolls, Altos and Dies 1863-1960, Record Group 318, Entry UP1, (318/450/79/20/4 vol. 347), U.S. National Archives, College Park, MD. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Custodian of Die, Rolls, and Plates, misc. dates, Ledger and Historical Record of Stock in the Miscellaneous Vault, 4-8-12 Subject silver certificate Series 1899-1935 all denominations through 1953: RG 318 Entry UD-1, (318/450/79/17/02 vol. 41), U.S. National Archives, College Park, MD. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, various dates, Delivery cards for $10 silver certificates 1933-1953C: BEP Historical Resource Center, Washington, DC. Donlon, William P., 1969, Donlon Catalog of United States Small Size Paper Money, 6th edition: Hewitt Bros., 160 p. Goodman, Leon, John Schwartz and Chuck O’Donnell, 1968, The Standard Handbook of Modern U.S. Paper Money, 1st edition: Harmer Roode & Co., 54 p. Goodman, Leon, John Schwartz and Chuck O’Donnell, 1971, The Standard Handbook of Modern U.S. Paper Money, 3rd edition: privately published, 111 p. Lofthus, Lee, Sep-Oct 2014, Release and Survival of $10 Series of 1933 Silver Certificates: Paper Money, v. 53, p. 316-321. Lofthus, Lee, Jan-Feb 2024, Series of 1933 $10 Silver Certificates, 90th Anniversary and Ten-Year Census Update: Paper Money, v. 63, p. 6-14 Lofthus, Lee, and Peter Huntoon, Mar-Apr 2024, Evidence for the Issuance of a $10 Series of 1933A Silver Certificate Sheet: Paper Money, v. 64, p. 80-101. Moffitt, Derek, USPaperMoney.Info - tabulation of serial numbers used on U.S. currency. Schwartz, John, and Scott Lindquist, 2011, Standard Guide to Small-Size U.S. Paper Money 1928 to Date, 10th edition: F-W Media, Inc., 382 p. Swigart, Jesse E., Memoranda from the Assistant Director of Production to BEP Director Alvin W. Hall, Central Correspondence Files: Record Group 318, entry A1-12, box 217, unlabeled bound file, (318/450/79/14/06 box 217), U.S. National Archives, College Park, MD: March 16, 1934 stating that the first 2,000 sheets of Series of 1933A $10s were delivered to the Treasurer February 27, 1934. April 2, 1934 stating that Wade’s $10 silver certificate Series of 1933 and 1933A sheets had been delivered to the U.S. Treasurer on April 2, 1934. U.S. Treasurer, Division of General Accounts, 1929-1934, United States Currency Delivered to the U.S. Treasurer July 1, 1929 to June 30, 1934: Record Group 50, Entry UD-131, (50/450/41/23/4 vol. 2), U.S. National Archives, College Park, MD. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 201 Treasury sealing assigned to Treasurer’s office in 1885 (Revised) Introduction and Purpose The sealing of Treasury currency and certificates was reassigned from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to the Treasurer’s office in 1885. The purpose of this article is to explain why this was done and how it impacted Treasury currency. The key person responsible for this change was Edward O. Graves, an employee of the Department of Treasury who was a champion for efficiency and Civil Service status for all Treasury employees. Graves served as a trouble shooter for Secretary of the Treasury William Sherman, which resulted in two reports that were highly critical of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in 1877 and 1881. His reward was to be appointed Chief of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in 1885, a position he held until 1889, wherein he implemented many of his proposed reforms, among them the transfer of the sealing currency out of the BEP to the Treasurer’s office. Treasury Currency Treasury currency is currency that Congress authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to issue. It included demand notes (1861-1862), legal tender notes (1862-1971), gold certificates (1863-1934), silver certificates (1878-1963) and Treasury notes (1890-1893). Congress also authorized the issuance of bank currency, which encompassed national bank notes (1863-1935) and Federal Reserve notes (1913-present). Federal Reserve bank notes, an emergency supplemental currency with backing similar to national bank notes, were current during 1915-1923 and 1933-1934, The difference between these classes of currency was who was obligated to redeem the notes into legal money. The Treasury itself carried the obligation for all Treasury currency. The bankers were obligated in the case of the bank currency, although ultimate liability for the Federal Reserve notes rests with the United States. The Paper Column by Peter Huntoon Doug Murray Figure 1. This is the very first $20 silver certificate that was sealed in the Treasury building after responsibility for sealing was transferred to the Treasurer’s office from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in 1885. It carries a small round red Treasury seal because that seal didn’t become available until 1886 before the order containing this note was executed. Heritage Auction archives photo. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 202 Only Treasury currency was affected by the events described in this article. Sealing of national bank notes continued to be carried out at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing because those notes weren’t considered to be complete unless signed by the issuing bankers. The Big Picture When John Sherman was appointed Secretary of the Treasury by Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes in March 1877, the employment rolls of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing were bloated with patronage appointees and the Bureau was under fire for lax security. Hays advocated in his campaign for a monetary gold standard and for civil service reform in order to base Federal employment on merit rather than political patronage. Former Ohio Congressman and Senator John Sherman was a like-minded Republican who upon appointment as Secretary used his position to further the goals of hard money and fiscal responsibility as Treasury policy. Immediately upon taking office in March 1877, Secretary Sherman appointed a committee of three, chaired by Edward Graves, to examine the operations of the Bureau. The other members were Edward Wolcott of the Comptroller of the Currency’s office and E. R. Chapman of the Internal Revenue Commissioner’s office. Graves had been hired as a clerk under Francis E. Spinner in the Treasurer’s office in 1863. He was promoted to chief clerk in 1868 and then moved on to become chief examiner of the Civil Service Commission. On July 1, 1874, he was appointed as the first superintendent of the newly organized National Bank Redemption Agency within the Treasurer’s office mandated by the Act of June 20, 1874, which provided for an expedited procedure for removing unfit national bank notes from circulation (BEP, 2004). Graves was the ideal candidate to spearhead Sherman’s reviews, having an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the Treasury Department and progressive views toward reforming it. What the 1877 committee found in terms of employment was a Bureau payroll bloated by lavish Congressional appropriations that were in turn used to cover appointments made to the workforce on the behalf of Congressmen “without the regard to the fitness of the appointees or the necessities of the work. * * * Moreover, the Bureau has been made to subserve, to a great extent, the purposes of an almshouse or asylum” (Graves and others, 1877, p. 9). The issue was job creation under the political spoils system whereby Congressmen with a sympathetic ear were finding employment for Union veterans and constituents left bereft from the Civil War by death or infirmity of providers who served the Union. The following examples were provided (Graves and others, 1877, p. 8). We are informed and believe that the force employed in some divisions was for a number of years together twice as great as was required for the proper performance of the work, and that in others it was three times as great as necessary. In one of these divisions a sort of platform had been built underneath the iron roof, about seven feet above the floor, to accommodate the surplus counters. On this shelf, on parts of which a person of ordinary height could not stand erect—deprived of proper ventilation, and exposed in summer to the joint effects of the heated roof above and the fumes of the wetted paper beneath—were placed some thirty or more women who had received appointments, and for whom room must be found. * * * the surplus force stowed away in the loft was entirely unnecessary; and that some of them, at times for lack of occupation, whiled away the time in sleep. * * * In the printing division we found twenty female messengers, sixteen of whom were ostensibly engaged in taking the sheets, as received from the printers, to the examining division. As soon as a few hundred sheets were ready they were taken up on a board and carried by a messenger through a narrow passage to the examiners. The messengers were so numerous as to be actually in each others’ way. On our recommendation they have all been discharged and replaced by one man, who takes all the sheets to the examiners on a truck, and finds time for other work besides. Secretary Sherman was so intent on implementing reforms at the BEP that he began instituting changes being suggested by the committee before the report was finalized or published. In the realm of employment, the workforce at the Bureau was reduced from 958 on April 1, 1877 to 367 by June 10th when the report was submitted for publication (Graves and others, 1877). This constituted a 62 percent reduction of the workforce. More reductions followed. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 203 The committee also examined practices that would provide security against fraudulent issues, which led them to question why Congress had been progressively assigning more work on the notes to the Bureau. The committee concluded “the public confidence in such security would be promoted by a division of the work between Government and private agencies, each of these agencies doing one or more of the printings necessary to wholly complete any obligation of the Government. * * * we accordingly recommend that at least one plate-printing on all legal-tender notes, national-bank notes, and United States bonds, be executed by capable, experienced, and responsible bank-note companies; and that, if it should be thought advisable to have a greater number of printings done outside of the Bureau, no company be permitted to execute more than one of them upon any obligation. * * * To obtain the full measure of security contemplated by this plan, the plates with which each establishment does its portion of the printing should be prepared by itself, and, together with the stock used in their preparation, should remain in its custody” (Graves and others, 1877, p. 12-13). The purpose for printing Treasury seals on notes was to indicate that they were lawfully monetized. The seals were overprinted as a final separate operation in the National Currency Bureau within the Treasury Department building. This allowed the U.S. Treasurer to maintain ultimate control over this all- important step in their production and served as a safeguard against spurious issues from the bank note companies. Sealing of national bank notes and gold certificates also was carried out in the Currency Bureau when those currencies came along. The National Currency Bureau evolved into the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The committee worried that as progressively more plate printing work was turned over to the Bureau, the situation had reached the point by 1877 that people within the Bureau could conspire to turn out fully printed spurious notes. Consequently, a primary recommendation of the committee was to divide the work between the Bureau and bank note companies in order to prevent such spurious issues, but to maintain sealing within the Bureau as the final printing step. Allowing the Bureau do all the work except sealing wasn’t even contemplated. However, that idea did germinate within a few years! Secretary Sherman left office in 1881, having been elected again to the Senate from Ohio where he served for another 16 years before being appointed Secretary of State by President William McKinley in 1897. However, before leaving Treasury in 1881, Sherman again turned to his trouble-shooter Graves and commissioned another report by him to evaluate criticism leveled against the quality of work being turned out by the BEP (New York Times, May 10, 1885). The complaints were being fomented by the bank note companies, which were smarting from the loss of printing contracts to the Bureau. The 1881 committee was seriously critical of the design work on all securities being turned out under the auspices of Chief Engraver George Casilear whose designs were dominated by lettering made using a reproduction process that had been patented by him. See Huntoon (2018). Politicians continued to run against perceived inefficiencies within the Treasury Department and the quality of work being turned out by the Bureau well after Sherman left. In 1884, it was the Democrats turn when Grover Cleveland ran a successful reform campaign that specifically targeted the Treasury Department. President Cleveland appointed Daniel Manning as his Secretary of the Treasury on March 8, 1885, four days after taking office. Manning had worked his way up from modest means to become president of the Albany Argus newspaper and president of The National Commercial Bank of Albany. He was a close friend and supporter of Samuel J. Tilden, New York’s former Democratic governor and 1876 presidential candidate, whom he collaborated with to oppose the corruption of New York City’s Tammany Hall politicians. Cleveland appointed Manning to the Secretary post as a reformer on Tilden’s recommendation. (New York Times, Dec 25, 1887). It is apparent that agitation by the bank note companies coupled with Grave’s reports had made Manning weary of the BEP. On April 16, he removed Chief Engraver Casilear as Superintendent of Engraving and Transferring (New York Times, Apr 17, 1885). SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 204 Secretary Manning next appointed Conrad N. Jorden as U. S. Treasurer on May 1st. Jordan was an accomplished New York banker with a solid reputation for creating order out of the chaos of the failure of the Gold Exchange Bank in 1869. He later served as Treasurer of the New York, Ontario and Western Railroad, where it was said he looked after the interests of former governor Tilden in that corporation (New York Times, Apr 23, 1885). Jordan was a reformer who helped the Cleveland campaign draw up plans to clean up the Treasury Department. It was Manning’s objective that Jordan bring business acumen to the Treasury Department upon his appointment. With this aggressive reform team in place, it was all but pre-ordained that they would identify and appoint Edward Graves to head the Bureau of Engraving and Printing as its Chief. He had been promoted to Assistant Treasurer in 1883. His appointment to head the Bureau was made by Manning on May 9, 1885, expressly “to carry out his intention to have sound business methods have something to do with the administration of a bureau which needs improvement” (New York Times, May 10, 1885). In short order, marching orders came down from Secretary Manning to the Bureau—a Bureau now headed by a Chief who was entirely on board with the orders and who had a hand in formulating them. Manning’s order is reproduced in its entirety with emphasis added to highlight directives that impacted the manufacture of Treasury currency. Notice that the radical step was being taken to move sealing of it from the BEP to the Treasurer’s office within the Treasury building where the Treasurer could exercise complete control over that all-important final step in its manufacture. Not only would sealing be carried out there, the notes also would be separated there as well. Treasury Department Office of the Secretary Washington, DC June 20, 1885 Rules and Regulations regarding the printing, delivery, sealing and separating of U. S. Notes and Certificates: It is hereby directed that U. S. Notes, Gold, and Silver Certificates, and Certificates of Deposit, Act of June 8, 1872 shall be printed and the serial numbers placed thereon by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and that such notes and certificates shall be delivered to the Treasurer of the United States unseparated, and in the sheets of paper upon which the same are printed. Delivers shall be made only upon requisitions of the Treasurer of the U. S. and such requisitions shall state the number of sheets of each denomination required and shall also specify the numbers of the notes Figure 2. Reform management team at the Treasury Department who oversaw moving the currency sealing operation from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to the Treasury Building in 1885. Left: Secretary of the Treasury Daniel Manning, center: Treasurer Conrad Jordan, right: BEP Chief Edward Graves. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 205 to be delivered. A new series of numbers shall be placed upon the notes and certificates to be delivered under these regulations, commencing with number one on each denomination. The Treasurer shall receipt to the Chief of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which receipt shall specify the number of sheets of paper containing unfinished notes or certificates of the denominations, numbers and amounts delivered. The Chief of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing shall make a detailed report to the Secretary of the Treasury of all unfinished notes and certificates delivered by hand to the Treasurer. The Treasurer shall make requisitions for all U. S. Notes, only in amounts corresponding with such amounts of notes as have been redeemed, cancelled and delivered to the proper officers for destruction by maceration, and for which he shall have their receipts. Requisitions for Gold, Silver and Currency Certificates shall be made by the Treasurer whenever he shall deem that the interests of the public service and the laws make a further supply necessary. Upon ascertaining by count, the correctness of the amount of U. S. Notes, and Gold and Silver Certificates purporting to have been delivered to him, the Treasurer shall charge himself with a like amount of money. The Treasurer shall hereafter be charged with the duty of placing the imprint of the Seal of the Treasury upon all U. S. Notes, Gold and Silver Certificates, and Certificates of Deposit of the Act of June 8, 1872. The Treasurer shall also cause the notes and certificates to be separated and prepared for issue. The Treasurer shall make to the Secretary of the Treasury such detailed reports of unfinished notes and certificates received by him from the Chief of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and of finished notes and certificates issued and redeemed by him, as may be required for the use of this office. D. Manning Secretary Sealing goes to the Treasurer’s Office Manning wrote the following in his annual report for 1885 (Manning, 1885, p. 491). The method in which United States notes and gold and silver certificates were issued at the time when the present Treasurer [Conrad N. Jordan] assumed the duties of the office appeared to him to lack the security which is had in every institution where such instruments of credit are issued. In order to remedy this defect, in part, the imprinting of the seal of the Treasury on the newly-printed notes was transferred from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to this office. The incomplete notes are now received by the Treasurer and completed by the imprint of the seal, then cut and separated under his supervision. An internal memo dated January 27, 1908 to Assistant Secretary Edwards in the Treasurer’s office introduced into a Congressional appropriation hearing in 1908 fleshes out Manning=s decision (House of Representatives, Jan 28, 1908, p. 518). In 1885, when the control of the Treasury Department passed into the hands of a new political party, the officers who were charged with the responsibility and payment of these notes as obligations of the Government, after very careful and full consideration of the situation, reached the conclusion that it was unsafe to trust the final completion of the notes to the same establishment that manufactured them. They held that inasmuch as the officials of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing were not bonded officers and were only responsible for the delivery of perfect and imperfect notes to balance the blank paper received by them that they should not be authorized to authenticate the notes or convert them into a money obligation of the Government. They held that the final authentication of the notes should be made by the officer who was responsible for the money thus produced - this is, the Treasurer of the United States. They also held that there was a danger in transporting the completed notes through the streets from the Bureau to the Department. The central issue was who should have the authority to complete the transformation of pieces of paper into currency. Those concerned felt that it was appropriate for Treasurer to carry out that final step inside the Treasury building. Two seemingly gratuitous secondary issues were raised to bolster the argument, probably because they could be more easily understood by the public than the subtle concept of completing a note. First, there was a risk of theft of completed currency as it was being transported between the BEP and the Treasurer’s office, and second, the Director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing was not a bonded official. Chief of the BEP Graves wrote the following in his 1885 annual report (Graves, 1885, p. 307-308): SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 206 Since the close of the fiscal year an important change has taken place in the method of finishing United States notes. A committee of officers of the Department was directed by the Secretary of the Treasury, on May 29, to devise and recommend to him a plan for imprinting the seals upon United States notes, and gold and silver certificates, and for separating the same, under the direction and supervision of the Treasurer of the United States. The committee, in its report, submitted the following propositions: 1. That public policy requires that there should not only be absolute security against fraud and overissue in the engraving and printing of the public securities, but that the public should be assured in some conclusive way that such security exists. 2. That such security can best be attained by intrusting the final authentication of the public securities to other control than that of the mechanical establishment by which they are executed. 3. That this object may be accomplished with reference to United States notes and certificates by intrusting to the Treasurer of the United States the duty of affixing the seal of the United States thereon. 4. That it is indispensable, in order to secure the full assurance of security at which this plan aims, that the imprint of the seal should not be made in the building where the securities are executed, but in the Treasury building, under the direct supervision of the Treasurer of the United States. 5. That, having examined the question, we believe that no legal obstacle exists to the transfer to the office of the Treasurer of the United States of a sufficient number of operatives and machines from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to perform this duty, and to charging such salaries and other expenses connected therewith to the appropriation for “labor and expenses of engraving and printing.” 6. That the notes and certificates complete, except as to the imprinting of the seal thereon and the separation thereof, should be delivered by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to the Treasurer of the United States, and that the responsibility of the Bureau should end and that of the Treasurer begin upon such delivery. 7. That, in order to fully fix the responsibility of the Treasurer of the United States, the notes and certificates should be taken up in the cash account of his office immediately on the imprinting of the seal thereon. This report having been approved by the Secretary, steps were at once taken for the transfer to the Figure 3. Postcard photo taken after 1900 showing the press room in the U. S. Treasury building where rotary presses were used to overprint Treasury seals on Treasury currency. Each press utilized a male pressman and female assistant. Contemporary postcard. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 207 office of the Treasurer of the United States of the presses, machinery, and operatives required to carry its recommendations into effect. The necessary arrangements were completed on the 16th of July, and on that day the sealing and separating of the notes were begun by the Treasurer’s Office, to which they are transferred by this Bureau unsealed and in sheets. This plan has worked to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. It relieves the Bureau of Engraving and Printing of the risk of holding finished notes, and deprives it of the power to produce perfect securities of any kind. Graves gave up a rather modest operation in 1885. Two pressmen, three separators who cut the sheets into individual notes and three sheet feeders were transferred from the BEP to the Treasurer’s office to seal and separate Treasury currency, along with their budget. Treasurer Jordan included the following statement in his letter accompanying his 1887 budget request to Congress (Jordan, Oct 29, 1885). Mr. E. O. Graves, Chief of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, has expressed the desire to have those employees of his office who are now engaged in sealing and separating United States notes under my supervision transferred to the rolls of this office. I fully concur as to the propriety of such transfer. The work is being done for the Treasurer’s office, and the persons engaged on it should be paid on the Treasurer’s rolls. The sealing and separating of Federal currency was carried out in the Treasurer’s Issue Division for the next 23 years. Figure 4. Pair of $10 Series of 1880 legal tender notes that bridged the transfer of sealing from the BEP (top note) to the Treasurer’s Office (bottom note). Such pairs exhibit differences between the seals, seal color and/or seal arrangement as is this case here. Serial numbering on the notes sealed in the Treasurer’s office started over at 1 with a different prefix letter so the bottom note is the 405th of its type that was sealed there. The differences that resulted between the two sealing operations explain why two Friedberg numbers were assigned to the Bruce-Wyman pairs that are listed on Table 1. Heritage Auction archives photo. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 208 Impact on Treasury Currency The sealing of Treasury currency in the Treasurer’s office commenced on July 16, 1885. As per Manning’s order, the sheets were serial numbered at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing beginning with serial number 1, then sent to the Treasurer’s office to be sealed and separated. The transfer of sealing to the Treasurer’s office took place a little over five weeks into the Rosecrans-Jordan era, before any sheets bearing Rosecrans-Jordan signatures were available. Consequently, many of the first sheets to be sealed in the Treasurer’s office carried the then obsolete Bruce- Wyman Treasury signatures. In due course, Rosecrans-Jordan plates became available for the heavily used denominations and sheets with those signatures followed. Plates for the low-demand high denominations were made on an as- needed basis. As a result, the first printings from them could arrive at the Treasurer’s office years after the transfer, thereby skipping one or more Treasury signature combinations in the process. The before and after data for all the Treasury currency that bridged the transfer is summarized on Table 1. The definitive character of the post-transfer printings is that serial numbering restarted at 1 on all of them. All those serial numbers were blue. A Mystery Something strange occurred with the Series of 1880 legal tender notes after the sealing operation was transferred to the Treasurer’s office. Doug Murray’s analysis of delivery data in the annual reports of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing for 1885-1890 reveals that the following notes were printed and numbered at the BEP, then delivered to the Treasurer’s office for sealing but never seen again. $1 Bruce-Wyman A1-A1636000 $2 Bruce-Wyman A1-A984000 $2 Rosecrans-Jordan A984001-A1052000. The next shipments of Series of 1880 $1 and $2 LTs carried Rosecrans-Huston signatures and started at serials A1636001 and A1052001, respectively. Murray’s finding is supported by a lack of reported notes from these serial number ranges in Gengerke’s census. Despite the reality that none of the phantom notes has ever turned up, they were assigned Friedberg catalog numbers; respectively, 30a, 52a and 52b. We have yet to find documentation explaining this peculiar situation. It appears they were destroyed. Aftermath Years after the sealing operation was transferred to the Treasurer’s office, the fact that the work was taken from the BEP began to rankle BEP management, particularly because it was born of mistrust Figure 5. Owing to the mysterious disappearance of the Bruce-Wyman and Rosecrans-Jordan $2 notes that were sealed at the Treasurer’s office, this is the lowest reported $2 from that operation. Notice that the serial number on the note is only 559 above the last Rosecrans- Jordan note that was sealed. Heritage Auction archives photo. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 209 (BEP, 1962). There was agitation at the Bureau to get it back and thereby trust the Bureau to deliver finished currency to the Treasury. There were some in the Treasury who also were in favor because they wanted to receive completed separated notes and, also, they wanted to get the industrial sealing and separating operation out of the Treasury Building with its noise and fumes. After all, when people thought of the Treasury Building, the expectation was that it was filled with white collar employees! Having the sealing and separating operations in a different facility than the intaglio printing and numbering struck the cost-cutting Republicans in Congress as inefficient as they eyed the Treasury Department during the latter part of Theodore Roosevelt presidency. Joseph P. Ralph, a particularly aggressive BEP Director who assumed the position in 1908, seized on this mood as a wedge to pry the sealing operation away from the Treasurer. That story is developed in detail in Huntoon and Lofthus (2014). Ralph accomplished the job by having his engineers write the specifications for a high-speed rotary overprinting press that would not only print the seals and serial numbers on the sheets, but also cut and collate the notes from the sheets in one operation. He contracted with the Harris Automatic Press Company to build the machines and then sold the concept as a fait accompli to Congress as one offering significant cost savings. Not only did the sealing operation go back to the BEP in 1910, the Bureau invented the concept of star replacement notes to maintain the count of notes in the streams that came from the presses. This innovation was required because the machines were producing finished notes so an efficient process was required to cull the misprints in note rather than sheet form without crippling production rates. Incidentally, another of Graves’ primary goals came to fruition. On June 29, 1888, President Grover Cleveland ordered that virtually all of the positions in the Bureau be covered by the Civil Service Act while Graves was Chief (BEP, 1962, p. 55). Handling Misprints in the Treasury Operation It was inevitable that there would be soilage as the sheets were being sealed in the Treasury Department. Also, people in that operation occasionally found misprints among the unsealed sheets delivered from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The question arises, how were those misprints handled? The only documentation pertaining to this matter that we have seen is a letter sent by BEP Director Joseph E. Ralph to U.S. Treasurer Lee McClung as Ralph was coordinating with the Treasurer’s office for the return of sealing to the Bureau. Ralph (Apr 14, 1910) wrote: * * * the practice in your Office is to destroy imperfect notes and replace them with notes drawn from your reserve stock without regard to the sequence of the numbers. It is clear that the Treasurer’s office maintained a stock of normally completed notes that were used as replacement notes. Thus, the counts in the packs were maintained, but handlers with a sharp eye would occasionally find notes with older out-of-sequence serial numbers mixed in. This Revision This article was first published in the September-October 2019 issue of Paper Money. That version was flawed in that we subsequently discovered that BEP Director Edward O. Graves willingly ceded the sealing operation to the U. S. Treasurer Office as an active partner in President Cleveland’s Treasury reform management team headed by Secretary of the Treasury Daniel Manning and Treasurer Conrad Jordan. Initially we thought sealing was taken from the BEP under duress. Thus, the spin of the original article was a disservice to history that we can’t let stand. Secondly, we subsequently learned through discovery of BEP Director Joseph E. Ralph’s 1910 letter how the Treasury sealing operation handled misprints that they made or found. This resolved a significant unknown of particular concern to numismatists. References Cited Bureau of Engraving and Printing, 1885-1890, Reports of the operations of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing for the fiscal year: U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, 1962, History of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, 1862-1962: U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 199 p. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, 2004, A brief history of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing: BEP Historical Resource Center, Washington, DC, 30 p. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 210 Gengerke, Martin, on demand, The Gengerke census of U. S. large size currency: gengerke@aol.com. Graves, Edward O., 1885, Report of the operations of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing: p. 312-313; in, Manning, Daniel, Annual report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the state of the finances for the year 1885, vol. 1: U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 745 p. Graves, Edward O., Edward Wolcott and E. R. Chapman, June 10, 1877, Report on the Bureau of Engraving and Printing made by the Committee of Investigations appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury: Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 52 p. with 10-page supplement consisting of an exchange of letters written by Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman and Chief of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Edward McPherson. House of Representatives, Jan 28, 1908, Seals on United States notes; in, Appropriation Hearings for 1909: Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, p. 509-518. Huntoon, Peter, and Lee Lofthus, Nov-Dec 2014, The birth of star notes, the back story: Paper Money, v. 53, p. 400-411. Huntoon, Peter, Mar-Apr 2018, Patented lettering on Bureau of Engraving and Printing products: Paper Money, v. 57, p. 93-107. Jordan, Conrad, October 29, 1885, Letter from the U. S. Treasurer to Secretary of the Treasury Daniel Manning, submitted as Appendix E with Estimates of Appropriations for 1887: U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, p. 264. Manning, Daniel, Secretary of the Treasury, June 20, 1885, Rules and Regulations regarding the printing, delivery, sealing and separating of U. S. notes and certificates: Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Copies of Official and Miscellaneous Letters Sent, v. 41, p. 791, U. S. National Archives, College Park, MD (318:450/79/06, v. 41). Manning, Daniel, 1885, Annual report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the state of the finances for the year 1885, vol. 1: U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 745 p. Ralph, Joseph E., April 14, 1910, Letter from BEP Director to U. S. Treasurer Lee McClung pertaining to the transfer of currency sealing and separating machinery from the Treasurer’s office to the BEP: Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Copies of Official and Miscellaneous Letters Sent, vol. 280, p. 275-277, U. S. National Archives, College Park, MD (318:450/79/08, v. 280). New York Times, Apr 17, 1885, Notes from the Capital. New York Times, Apr 23, 1885, A new Treasurer chosen; Mr. Wyman resigns; and Mr. Jordan is appointed. New York Times, May 10, 1885, Promotion for merit; a proof of sincerity in civil service reform; the appointment of Edward O. Graves as Chief of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. New York Times, Dec 25, 1887, Mr. Manning’s career; outline of the life of one who made himself. United States Statutes, Jun 20, 1874, An Act fixing the amount of United States notes, providing for a redistribution of the national- bank currency, and for other purposes: Government Printing Office, Washington, DC. Figure 7. Fr. 1192a is the most enigmatic type note sealed at the Treasury Department. It was from a group of Rosecrans-Huston sheets numbered in normal sequence on which they overprinted a small scalloped seal instead of the large spiked seal then in use for this type. It involved some type of mistake. This is the only note with the variety reported as of this writing. Heritage Auction archives photo. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 211 Ta b le 1 . Tr e as u ry c u rr e n cy t h at b ri d ge d t h e t ra n sf e r o f se al in g in J u ly 1 8 8 5 f ro m t h e B u re au o f En ga vi n g an d P ri n ti n g to t h e U . S. T re as u re r' s o ff ic e . Se al in g at t h e B u re au o f En gr av in g an d P ri n ti n g Se al in g at t h e U . S . T re as u re r' s o ff ic e Se ri al Se ri al Ty p e Se ri e s D e n Tr e as u ry S ig s B lo ck L tr Se al Fr . # Tr e as u ry S ig s1 B lo ck L tr 2 Se al Fr . # LT 18 80 1 B ru ce -W ym a n Z (r e d ) la rg e b ro w n w it h s p ik e s 30 R o se cr a n s- H u st o n A ( b lu e ) la rg e r e d w it h s p ik e s 31 $1 B ru ce -W ym a n A 1 -A 1 63 60 00 p ri n te d b u t n o t is su e d 18 80 2 B ru ce -W ym a n Z (r e d ) la rg e b ro w n w it h s p ik e s 52 R o se cr a n s- H u st o n A ( b lu e ) la rg e r e d w it h s p ik e s 53 $2 B ru ce -W ym a n A 1 -A 9 84 00 0 & R o se cr a n s- Jo rd a n A 9 84 00 1- A 1 05 20 00 p ri n te d b u t n o t is su e d 18 80 5 B ru ce -W ym a n Z (r e d ) la rg e b ro w n w it h s p ik e s 72 B ru ce -W ym a n A ( b lu e ) la rg e r e d r o u n d 73 18 80 10 B ru ce -W ym a n Z (r e d ) la rg e b ro w n w it h s p ik e s 10 2 B ru ce -W ym a n A ( b lu e ) la rg e r e d r o u n d 10 3 18 80 20 B ru ce -W ym a n Z (r e d ) la rg e b ro w n w it h s p ik e s 13 2 B ru ce -W ym a n A ( b lu e ) la rg e r e d r o u n d 13 3 18 80 50 W ym a n -B ru ce Z (r e d ) la rg e b ro w n w it h s p ik e s 15 6 Jo rd a n -R o se cr a n s A ( b lu e ) la rg e r e d r o u n d 15 7 18 80 10 0 B ru ce -W ym a n Z (r e d ) la rg e b ro w n w it h s p ik e s 17 3 R o se cr a n s- Jo rd a n A ( b lu e ) la rg e r e d r o u n d 17 4 18 80 50 0 B ru ce -W ym a n Z (r e d ) la rg e b ro w n w it h s p ik e s 18 5- f R o se cr a n s- Jo rd a n A ( b lu e ) la rg e r e d r o u n d 18 5- g 18 80 10 00 B ru ce -W ym a n Z (r e d ) la rg e b ro w n w it h s p ik e s 18 7- b R o se cr a n s- Jo rd a n A ( b lu e ) la rg e r e d r o u n d 18 7- c SC 18 80 10 B ru ce -W ym a n B ( b lu e ) la rg e b ro w n o ve r X 28 9 B ru ce -W ym a n A ( b lu e ) la rg e r e d r o u n d 29 0 18 80 20 B ru ce -W ym a n B ( b lu e ) la rg e b ro w n o ve r XX 31 1 B ru ce -W ym a n A ( b lu e ) sm a ll r e d r o u n d 31 2 18 80 50 B ru ce -W ym a n B ( b lu e ) la rg e b ro w n o ve r L 32 7 R o se cr a n s- H u st o n A ( b lu e ) la rg e b ro w n w it h s p ik e s 32 8 18 80 10 0 B ru ce -W ym a n B ( b lu e ) la rg e b ro w n o ve r C 34 0 R o se cr a n s- H u st o n A ( b lu e ) la rg e b ro w n w it h s p ik e s 34 1 G C 18 82 20 B ru ce -W ym a n A ( b ro w n ) b ro w n e a rl y sc a ll o p e d 11 76 R o se cr a n s- H u st o n C (b lu e ) la rg e b ro w n w it h s p ik e s 11 77 18 82 50 B ru ce -W ym a n A ( b ro w n ) b ro w n e a rl y sc a ll o p e d 11 90 R o se cr a n s- H ya tt C (b lu e ) la rg e r e d w it h s p ik e s 11 91 18 82 10 0 B ru ce -W ym a n A ( b ro w n ) b ro w n e a rl y sc a ll o p e d 12 03 R o se cr a n s- H ya tt C (b lu e ) la rg e r e d w it h s p ik e s 12 04 18 82 50 0 B ru ce -W ym a n A ( b ro w n ) b ro w n e a rl y sc a ll o p e d 12 15 -c R o se cr a n s- H ya tt C (b lu e ) la rg e r e d w it h s p ik e s 12 15 -d 18 82 10 00 B ru ce -W ym a n A ( b ro w n ) b ro w n e a rl y sc a ll o p e d 12 18 -b R o se cr a n s- H ya tt C (b lu e ) la rg e r e d w it h s p ik e s 12 18 -c 18 82 50 00 B ru ce -W ym a n A ( b ro w n ) b ro w n e a rl y sc a ll o p e d 12 21 -b R o se cr a n s- H ya tt C (b lu e ) la rg e r e d w it h s p ik e s 12 21 -c 18 82 10 00 0 B ru ce -W ym a n A ( b ro w n ) b ro w n e a rl y sc a ll o p e d 12 23 -b R o se cr a n s- H ya tt C (b lu e ) la rg e r e d w it h s p ik e s 12 23 -c 1. T h e T re a su ry s ig n a tu re s a re l is te d h e re i n t h e l e ft t o r ig h t o rd e r in w h ic h t h e y a p p e a r o n t h e n o te s. 2. S e ri a l n u m b e ri n g b e ga n a t 1. T h e s e ri a l n u m b e rs w e re p ri n te d a t th e B u re a u o f En gr a vi n g a n d P ri n ti n g. F ig u re 7 . T h es e b ri d g e a d o p ti o n o f th e sm a ll er s ca ll o p ed se a l w h il e T re a su ry w a s se a li n g T re a su ry c u rr en cy . SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 212 You Collect. We Protect. Learn more at: www.PCGS.com/Banknote PCGS.COM | THE STANDARD FOR THE RARE COIN INDUSTRY | FOLLOW @PCGSCOIN | ©2021 PROFESSIONAL COIN GRADING SERVICE | A DIVISION OF COLLECTORS UNIVERSE, INC. PCGS Banknote is the premier third-party certification service for paper currency. All banknotes graded and encapsulated by PCGS feature revolutionary Near-Field Communication (NFC) Anti-Counterfeiting Technology that enables collectors and dealers to instantly verify every holder and banknote within. VERIFY YOUR BANKNOTE WITH THE PCGS CERT VERIFICATION APP Fred Schwan U N C O U P L E D : PAPER MONEY’S ODD COUPLE Joseph E. Boling FTPCs Foreign trade payment certificates (FTPC) were a form of currency intended for non-military users of military facilities during the occupation of Japan, 1947- 1950. The next six paragraphs are largely lifted from Schwan and Boling, World War II Remembered. When Japan was occupied by the United Nations powers, the possession of “foreign exchange instruments” was prohibited by the Supreme Commander, Allied Powers (SCAP). Foreign exchange instruments were not only foreign banknotes but also checks, drafts, letters of credit, or other documents that could be converted into currencies other than yen. Troops were paid with and used yen (almost exclusively supplemental B yen) until military payment certificates were introduced in 1946, after which all U.S. troop facilities converted to dollar pricing. Commonwealth facilities converted from yen to British armed forces special vouchers (BAFSVs) in May 1947. Neither of these currencies was a foreign exchange instrument because neither could be legally held by a Japanese citizen or converted by one into a foreign currency. On 15 August 1947 foreigners other than occupation forces were allowed to enter Japan to establish foreign trade (missionaries may have been allowed to enter even earlier). These foreigners (known collectively as commercial entrants) occasionally needed to use occupation forces facilities but, like the Japanese, were not allowed to use the military currencies. Therefore, a new form of currency was developed, known as Foreign Trade Special Type Payment Certificates. Since the certificates themselves did not bear the words “special type,” the name foreign trade payment certificate (FTPC) became common. The earliest possible issue date would be 15 August 1947; the exact date of first issue is unknown, but was probably around 1 September 1947. Commercial entrants used yen for personal purchases on the Japanese economy and foreign trade payment certificates for payments in troop facilities and a few other places established for their convenience. At various times See Boling page 217 Gasoline Coupons Part III As I start this column, I am uncertain if this is the final chapter of the series on post World War II military gasoline coupons. I know of enough coupons to fill at least a few more “chapters.” The problem is that I know of them, but in many cases I do not know much about them! Then there is the problem of the ones that I neither know of or about. The country of most prolific coupon use that we have not previously discussed is Italy. When I gathered the images of what I have in my own collection and what Harold Kroll has shared with us, we have representative examples over quite a span—1955-1997! Can we (I) fully appreciate them? I am not so sure. All the coupons for use in Italy are quite different from those previously discussed. The most obvious difference in the early Italian issues is that these issues use a coupon with tab system. We have images of coupons for 1955, 1956 and 1959-1960. All those coupons were for Esso gasoline. It would be easy to miss these coupons in a junk box. They do not specify military use in any obvious way. The clearest clues are that the text is in Italian and English, and the talon and stub have “EUCOM Exchange Service APO 174.” If you never served in Europe, you might not know that EUCOM is EUropean COMmand. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 214 The 1960 issue is much clearer, stating “U. S. Forces - Nato Forces, Italy.” The use of lower-case letters in Nato is a bit strange, but at least the coupons are clearly for American and NATO troops. I have seen coupons for only one issue entirely in the 1970s, 1972-1973 to be exact. These coupons are much different from the coupons of the 1950s and 60s. Mentions of EUCOM are gone, but the use by US and Nato Forces remains. The coupons are more like those used in Germany. They were issued in booklets without large tabs and in an interesting twist that continued onward, the serial numbers were moved to the backs of the coupons. The glaring difference is that these coupons were for Mobil gasoline. What was going on? It seems to me that there are two logical explanations. The first is that EUCOM negotiated deals with different gasoline vendors at different times and this fact shows up on the coupons. The other possible idea is that coupons were issued simultaneously for different gasoline brands. A new style was introduced at the end of the 1970s. We’ve seen 1979-80 (two shades of blue), 1983-84 (green and blue), 1984-85 (orange and blue), and 1985- 86 (also two shades of blue). All the coupons of this style are for NATO Forces. The designs are simple but not without mystery. The coupons have a large P or G as part of the design. They are all for the same grade of gasoline, but the one with G is marked “for official use only.” I can see these indicating “personal” and “government.” SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 215 Moving into the 1990s we have seen three different years: 1989-90, 1990-91 and 1996-97. The designs are all different, but of similar style. They are more colorful and include some security devices. All three are for NATO Forces Italy and have the mysterious G “code” in an upper corner. Those do not say anything about “official use,” so that code letter seems to NOT represent “government.” The 1997 issue has the crest of the United States Defense Department—the first time we have seen that. This completes what I can tell you about coupons for Italy. We have seen a lot of interesting coupons, but there are many holes in this report. Most of the coupons for Italy were for NATO forces. The overall headquarters for NATO, SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe), is in Brussels, Belgium. Of course they had gasoline coupons! I have seen two or three coupons, but they were all from the same issue (1982-1983). These coupons were brought home by two great collectors who were soldiers stationed at SHAPE and who have both passed on: Ray Bows and Richard Freyser. The coupons are quite simple, with SUPREME HEADQUARTERS ALLIED POWERS EUROPE, but they do have one interesting aspect. They have a third brand of gasoline—FINA. I can tell you something about two more issues: Spain and Canada (yes, Canada). These two issues are sort of a travel report for me. In the 1980s I was a soldier stationed in Germany. I was moderately (unfortunately only moderately) interested in collecting gasoline coupons. I was entitled to buy coupons for Germany and the Netherlands. Actually, I was authorized to buy them for any NATO country that had them, but the local PX carried only coupons for Germany and the Netherlands. I told the clerk that I was going to vacation in Spain and wanted some coupons. I do not remember the details, but in due course I obtained a sheet of ten 10-liter coupons. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 216 The only clue that these are military items is the legend in red, “Grupo Militar Conjunto,” which translates on the internet to “Joint Military Group.” I suppose NATO is sort of a joint group. CAMPSA is an abbreviation for the name of the Spanish oil company that provided the product. The coupons do not have dates, but they are marked Series 0020. My guess is the idea was that in case of some need, a series could be revoked by public announcements to that effect. I have never seen another series. My favorite European gasoline coupons were issued for use by Canadian forces in Germany. It is probably easy to understand why these would be favorites. It is not likely that you ever heard of them or would have ever guessed that such things existed. While it is true that these are my favorites, my saga about them is a Shakespearian tragedy. As I mentioned above, I was in the Army in Germany in the early 1980s. I had the good fortune to attend a class at the NATO school at Oberammergau in Bavaria. Of course, I knew about Canadian coupons and there were some Canadians in the class. I had tried to make friends with some—or at least one—of them, but it had not worked out. On the last day of class as we were all walking across the grounds to depart, I saw one of the Canadians and knew that it was my last chance. I approached him and explained about my collecting problem. He must have thought that I was very crazy, but he did not hesitate too much and sold me a partial sheet of 10-liter coupons. These coupons, as you can see, are very different from all other coupons. Not the most obvious, but the most interesting is the fact that the key points are in English, German, and French! You may know that Canada is officially a bi-lingual country, with French being the less-used second language. I was very pleased with myself for obtaining these wonderful coupons. It is downhill from here. I sold, traded, or gave away two or three of the coupons and put one into my collection. The remainder were put aside to dispose of later. Well, not only can I not find the “extras,” I cannot find the one that I put into my collection. Of the candidates to whom I may have given, traded, or sold a coupon, one is dead and two do not recall such an event. I have been looking for any one of these or even another issue on eBay for decades. Heck, I have been looking for the image that I made in the 1980s of the piece in my collection. The last two hours of the search ended today when I found the black and white image shown here. I am happy and even proud to present it now. If (make that when) I find an original I will bring up the subject again. So there we are. I have finished with gas coupons. We have exhausted my collection and my knowledge. There are NATO countries that we have not even mentioned that very likely had gasoline coupons. Norway and Portugal are likely candidates. I am only barely hopeful of ever finding—or even seeing—such coupons. Next time I hope to regale you with some other adventure. Boling continued: FTPCs were used to pay for the following goods and services: private telephone, telegraph, and radio-telephone messages to countries in the dollar bloc; travel scrip used for tickets, accommodations, and meals on trains reserved for occupation personnel (regular trains used yen rates); groceries and sundries in overseas supply stores and specialty stores operated for the convenience of foreigners (other than occupation forces); hotel services in the special hotels maintained for short- term visits (up to 60 days) bycommercial entrants; fees and dues in private clubs operated by occupation forces, but which some commercial entrants could join; and a few other minor uses where dollar rates were established for payment. A short-term entrant who did not travel far from the major cities could avoid using yen altogether if desired. When entrants arrived, all foreign exchange instruments had to be surrendered; they could convert as much as desired into foreign trade payment certificates and yen; the balance remained in a blocked account. Upon departure, they could convert their foreign trade payment certificates back into dollars or other foreign exchange; they could convert no yen; and the balances of their accounts were returned to them. If more certificates were needed during a visit, they could convert additional dollars from their blocked accounts at one of the commercial banks appointed to handle certificate sales. Much remains to be learned about foreign trade payment certificates. When each issue was released, whether series circulated concurrently, and whether “conversion days” were held (as for military payment certificates) are all unknown. Analysis of serial numbers shows that all series were numbered consecutively, i.e., numbering did not start at zero for later issues. No reports have been found regarding how many certificates were prepared. Certainly, near the end of their use, many more were needed than were used in 1947. The 15 August 1947 regulation allowed limited commercial entry; in August 1948 the entry rules were liberalized, and many more traders began to arrive. Looking at serial numbers, it is evident that there was a tremendous quantity in use; it is amazing that so few have survived. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 217 I recently was able to study the largest collection known to me—over 100 pieces. I was surprised at some of the details I was able to establish. Foreign trade payment certificates were issued in denominations of 5¢, 10¢, 25¢, 50¢, $1, and $5. The certificates were printed in Japan on locally available unwatermarked paper and were issued in “club chit” format in booklets of $10 and $50 value. The books are serially numbered, with each piece in the book bearing the same number as the cover. The 5¢ and 10¢ chits were printed five to a page, the 25¢ and 50¢ chits four to a page, and the $1 and $5 certificates as full pages. All pieces are uniface. The certificates are printed on cream or light tan paper, the minors in one color and the dollar denominations in two colors. The frame color of the two-color certificates is the same as the color of minors in the corresponding booklet. Three designs in several colors and color combinations have been discovered. Since color changed (and was repeated) within a design, no attempt is made to list the notes by color. In addition, some colors appear in multiple shades, which are probably not relevant to cataloging. Instead, notes can be separated into design sets and then further identified by color (and serial range, when significant). We have found officially-published serial ranges for specific colors for most notes between 20001 and 90000. Colors changed every 5000 booklets (the cover designs changed only once). Among the 100+ notes in this collection, there were no instances of colors changing outside of the every-5000-sets rubric. The design sets are principally separated by the designs of the cent-denominated chits, because the dollar- denominated notes remained the same when the fractionals transitioned from design #2 to #3. Design set 1 Design set 2 Design set 3 Figures 1-2 Figures 3-5 Figures 6-7 Cents design a design b design c dollars design A design B design B The paper changed over time, and the descriptions we wrote in 1995 for Remembered must be modified. Having access to so many pieces has allowed me to be more precise about paper transitions. At least two varieties of paper were used (not new information). They are cream colored with very few or no inclusions, and light tan (possibly discoloring with age) with many small brown chips visible when held to a light (a lower quality paper). See figures 8-10, which are photographed on a light box. The two lowest serials in this collection show the better (white) paper, previously not known for this set. It soon gave way to the speckled paper. However, the transition back to white did not come at the design 2-3 boundary as previously published, but somewhat later—some set #3 notes were still using the crude paper. So assigning $1 and $5 notes to their appropriate sets must be driven by the designs of the fractional notes they are found with, or by the serial number if sufficient observations allow. Figure 1 (above) Figure 2 (below) Figure 3 (above) Figure 5 (below) Figure 6 (above) Figure 7 (below) SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 218 The change from design set #1 to #2 came someplace between serial numbers 68000 and 98000. The change to set #3 came between 177000 and 188000. The highest serial so far seen by me is 606800. Figure 4 is a mystery. It is a chit (accompanied by its booklet cover) with a serial number in a different font and format than seen anywhere else (matched on the booklet cover). The chit design is that of set #2, but the serial is far outside the range of that set, and unlike anything any collector whom we know has seen. Explanatory information will be very welcome. Figure 4 Figure 9 (above) Figure 10 (below) Figure 8 SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 219 Postmaster Marshall: Left Holding the Bag1 by Bob Laub The initial portion of my story takes place in Lititz, Pennsylvania, a small rural community in the Southeast portion of the state. The town was originally established as Litiz, but the name was changed to Lititz, February 2, 1880. The town, in the 1880’s, had a population of just over 1,100 residents. The postmistress was Mrs. Sarah A. Christ, and was in that position since May 21, 1883.The Lititz Post Office was just one of the nation’s more than 6,000 post offices designated to issue the new series 1883-1894 United States Postal Notes. On Friday, January 11th, 1884, an unknown person approached the clerks window at the Lititz Post Office. They asked to purchase one of the new postal notes. “New” in the sense that the notes had only been officially issued for a little more than four months, since September 3rd 1883. The customer requested one be issued for $3.00. This amount did not include the three-cent clerical fee which was subject to every issued note. The postal note they received was a Type I (yellow paper type, all later types were on grey paper), serial number 118 and was made payable only at the Lancaster, Pennsylvania Post Office. Also at the same time a Money Order Advise would have also been required. On Monday, January 14th, the note was presented for payment at the Lancaster Post Office. Only six-miles from Lititz, this city of 26,000 inhabitants was the designated pay-out location. James H. Marshall was the Postmaster, a position held by him since January 17th, 1876. Once a note was presented to be cashed, it was verified, paid out, and then forwarded to Washington, D.C. to have the postmasters account credited. As shown by various cancellations the note arrived in Washington, D.C., and then passed through the Auditor’s Office of the Money Order Division June 12th, 1884. It appears the Auditor’s Office in Washington refused to credit the postmasters account. At that time the note was returned to the paying post office at Lancaster. The reason the note was returned; it had never been properly endorsed at the time of payment. This is further evidenced by a fine blue large check mark placed on the Payee’s line at the bottom of the notes obverse. It appears the Lancaster Post Office retained the note for several months, possibly in the hope the redeemer returned, was recognized, and asked to finally endorse the note. After many unsuccessful months, the note was again resubmitted to Washington, possibly hoping it might slip through the system. Once again the note passed through the Money Order Auditor’s Office as documented by an additional date written in red ink, Dec.19, 1884, and was once again rejected. Upon closer examination of the notes obverse, one sees at the top right the word “Disallowed” in red ink. Also in a central location, in large blue letters, on an angle the letters “Dis” (allowed) Sometime during this eleven-month process, the note was punch-cancelled with two circular holes vertically, ¾ of an inch apart, between the issuing and paying circles. These are located on the left side of the notes obverse. This was the correct method a Type I note would be shown to have been already cashed. I believe this was the final coup de grace2 for any further action by the Auditor’s Office. This in turn would have made Postmaster Marshall responsible for the original $3.00 his office paid out. In today’s society a small monetary clerical error could easily be overlooked, and get lost in the shuffle. In perspective, in 1880’s rural Pennsylvania, a common laborer’s pay was sixty-seven-cents per week. That clerical error was equivalent to almost five weeks pay. At the time of this most unfortunate clerical error, Postmaster Marshall was already well seasoned in his position for over 9 & ½ years. If everything clerically had been in order, the issuing postmasters account would be credited the original $3.00, plus ¾ of a cent for cashing the note. In turn any post office issuing a note would have had their account credited at a rate of 1 cent. All approved/cashed notes would then be forwarded to a large secure storage facility, and kept for up to seven years. After which the notes would be sold to the highest bidder as waste scrap paper. Thankfully for the readers of this article, and fellow postal note collectors the Lititz note survived. Not such a great memento for Postmaster Marshall though. The note ended up being an expensive souvenir. This should now make the article title a clearer choice of words. Postmaster Marshall, Left Holding the Bag1. 1 a negative expression meaning to abandon someone, to force someone to bear the responsibility or blame: 2- a coup de grace: French term meaning an action or event that serves as the culmination of a bad or deteriorating situation: A Ty. I Issued at Lititz, PA., Jan.11,1884. Redeemed at Lancaster, PA. Jan.14, 1884. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 220 WORLDWIDE AUDIENCE LIVE BIDDING ON OUR WEBSITE & MOBILE APPS DEDICATED CATALOGS & SALES FOR ADVANCED COLLECTIONS 0% COMMISSION FEE ON ALL CONSIGNMENTS WORLD BANKNOTE AUCTIONS SPECIALIZING IN US PAPER MONEY info@worldbanknoteauctions.com +1 (916)-701-5132 / (888)-707-1564 World Banknote Auctions P.O. Box 348144 Sacramento, CA 95834 United States www.worldbanknoteauctions.com Robert Calderman Number One Notes in Disguise! The U.S. Paper Money Market has been astoundingly robust over the past four years! Bread and butter large size type notes, and high denomination small size examples in collector grade VF to AU have in many cases tripled in value since the Covid madness that took the world over around this same time of year back in 2020. There has been plenty of would-a should-a could-a talk between collectors and dealers across bourse floors all over the country recently. “If I had only known, I would have sold everything in my holdings and bought nothing but Chiefs, Bisons, and Educational notes… look how expensive they are now!” This is nothing new in the world of collectibles. Boom and bust cycles are always full of excitement for those who get their timing seemingly perfect and bittersweet for others that dwell too long on what could have been had they just pulled the trigger and dove in head first when they had the opportunity. Who knows what the future holds? Regardless, with all the ebbs and flows one thing is very clear… the hobby is as strong as ever! Even when new records are being hit at almost every turn, there are always opportunities out there. Take a look at national bank notes! There have been some amazing deals recently for those that are doing their homework! When multiple collections hit the market seemingly back- to-back it is extremely difficult for every note to be absorbed into the marketplace at high levels. The more specialized the category the more this reigns true. Along with national bank notes, there have been several small size varieties that are exceptionally rare and are now trading for incredible bargains! Challenging large size Fr.# rarities have also come to market this year trading for pennies on the dollar vs. historic auction realizations. When the most common material is inflated to the point that everyone is scratching their heads, many dealers and collectors are missing what is right in front of them, mega deals on the absolute best stuff that will potentially never come around again in our collective lifetimes! Fancy serial number notes are a category that has truly caught fire recently. Beginning February 2022 with the Zietmann Goldberg Auctions sale, records were hit left and right and a feverish fancy frenzy began! Notes featuring solid 8-digit serial numbers took the spotlight along with serial number one show stoppers. There are a number of brand new collectors gravitating toward the fancy serial number category and it would appear that the market cannot supply them with enough material to satisfy their insatiable appetite! Incredibly in January 2023, World Banknote Auctions sold a solid serial number nine district set of ten-dollar series of 1999 federal reserve notes realizing an astounding $149,500.00!!! When fancy numbers hit monumental dollar figures like this I cannot help but feel for all of those Fractional Currency Collectors, they have no serial numbers at all! How can they be having any fun? How miserable that must be, oh the humanity!!!  Now that you have a brief glimpse of the current pulse of the paper money market, there is a very important factor we have not yet discussed. Some of the very best material that exists flies under the radar, completely outside the viewing spectrum of the public eye. Incredible notes trade privately all the time and do not make it onto the glossy vibrant pages of auction catalogs! Building relationships in this hobby can be much more rewarding than just the material itself. It is no secret that all of the notes in our collections will outlast us; we are after all just the lucky caretakers for what brief time we have to enjoy our treasures. Have you made friends in this hobby? Have you taken the opportunity to volunteer and invest some time in growing the hobby for the future with your local club or national organizations like the SPMC Society of Paper Money Collectors? Start by attending a major show like FUN or ANA. Get to know your fellow collecting brethren at a club meeting or educational seminar. Are you genuinely not a people person? That is okay, fortunately this is not a requirement! Simply loving paper money and being a collector is the only prerequisite! Featured for this installment is an incredible district set of serial number one notes that I was very fortunate to recently purchase and add to my collection! This opportunity would have never existed had I stayed on the sidelines and bought notes on my phone via the internet sitting on the sofa eating popcorn! I am very thankful for the friendships I have made by attending shows and SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 222 volunteering to help the hobby grow in what little ways I could find to help the cause. While the motivation was genuinely a simple desire to see the hobby expand, the result of opening doors for my own collection to grow has been an incredible and unexpected reward! For those of you that are scratching your heads right now looking at these notes wondering if these supposed serial number one notes all require a secret decoder ring to decrypt or maybe a pair of special spy glasses to see clearly, this is not the case. One of the perks of being a small size specialist is knowing which series of notes had serial numbers that continued on from their previous series and did not start over again at 00000001. The fact that these were saved at all is a miracle all on its own! Take a close look, each of these series of 1950-B five dollar notes is the very first printed for each and every one of the twelve Federal Reserve banks! Talk about a spectacular dozen, wow!!! You never know what you might find out there and what treasures you may have the opportunity to add to your collection. All it takes is heading out on the road and adventuring a bit… 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. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 223 The Obsolete Corner The Florida Atlantic and Gulf Central Railroad Company by Robert Gill Hello fellow members. As you read this, Summer will be well on its way. I hope it will be nicer for us than it was last year. The four-month drought in Oklahoma last year was devastating, as it was for most of the nation. Maybe Mother Nature will show us some sympathy. The political climate in our great nation seems to be getting out of control. One side seems to want to take us down unchartered waters, so to speak, while the other side wants us to stay on course and strive for improvement. It’s really scarry to think what our country will look like twenty years from now if the wrong people remain in control. With our voting population being so divided like it is, Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey have “nothing over us”! We are like a big CIRCUS to the rest of the world. With all that being said, we do have one thing in our lives that we can be dependent upon that keeps getting better and better. And that is this great hobby that we have in paper money. Recent auction records reveal that quality notes keep appreciating in value at an alarming rate. The future looks to remain strong in all areas of paper. And 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 Sunshine State and look at The Florida Atlantic and Gulf Central Railroad Company, headquartered in Jacksonville. As one looks at the scan of my sheet, it can be seen to not be in a very good state of preservation. But it is very RARE. This sheet and one other surfaced within the last three years. Until then, I had never seen or even heard of a survivor, although there is probably one in the big Florida Obsolete collections. And now, let’s look at the history behind this old Company. Aggressive railroad development began in the United States during the 1820s and 1830s. Initially, development was concentrated in industrialized areas like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York. Although not a major industrial area, it was only a few years before the railroad arrived in Florida. The first railroad line in the State, constructed in 1834, ran between Tallahassee and Port Leon. The Florida General Assembly passed the Internal Improvement Act of 1855. It granted railroad companies land in exchange for new tracks. The State Government supported the railroads because better transportation would help facilitate a stronger economy for Florida. With State support, railroad developers began linking the many communities of the State. The Florida Atlantic and Gulf Central Railroad was a thirty-six-mile, five-foot gauge railroad line organized in 1851 under the leadership of Dr. Abel S. Baldwin. The plan called for it to run from Jacksonville to Alligator, later renamed Lake City, in 1859. The enterprise received extensive land allotments around its right-of-way because of grants from The Florida Internal Improvement Commission. These lands were part of Federal lands received under the Swamp Land Act. Jacksonville issued $50,000 in bonds to help with the financing. Gregg Turner, in his 2003 publication, A Short History of Florida Railroads, reported that although the Railroad was chartered in 1851, ground was not broken and construction started until 1857. The delay was due to a yellow fever epidemic. It was completed on March 13th, 1860. John P. Sanderson was seated as President, and George R. Foster served as Secretary. The location of this operation was very important to the development of Jacksonville, which was on the Eastern terminus of the line. Until 1851, Jacksonville was only a village. But the community rapidly developed into the principal port on Florida's Atlantic Coast. Equally propitious, the Western end of the rail line was at Lake City, which was on the edge of Florida's rich plantation belt. Service was disrupted intermittently during the Civil War. During this time, the Railroad figured in the Battle of Olustee. Union Brigadier General Truman Seymour led troops west toward Lake City along the line, destroying the junction at Baldwin, and then engaging Confederate troops near Olustee Station. Although heavily damaged, the tracks and junction were rebuilt after the War. Shortly after the end of the War, the Railroad began defaulting on its payments to the Florida Internal Improvement Fund, and was put up for sale as reported on by The Charleston Daily Reporter on April 20th, 1867: SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 224 Consequently, in 1868, it was purchased, under substantial controversy, by George W. Swepson, who renamed it The Florida Central Railroad Company. The Florida Atlantic and Gulf Central Railroad Company, under its new name, remained the only rail line serving Jacksonville until 1881. So, there’s the history behind this old Company and how it played its part in building the transportation system that we have in this country. As I always do, I invite any comments to my cell phone (580) 221-0898, or my personal email address robertdalegill@gmail.com Until next time, HAPPY COLLECTING. “Sale of The Florida Atlantic & Gulf Central Railroad. THE FLORIDA ATLANTIC & GULF CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY, having failed to provide the sinking fund for the redemption of their bonds, as required by law, notice is hereby given that on the FOURTH DAY OF SEPTEMBER, 1867, I will offer for sale at public auction, to the highest bidder, at Lake City, Florida, The Florida Atlantic & Gulf Central Rail Road, and all its property of every kind. Terms cash. Stamps at the cost of purchaser. By order of the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund. HUGH A. CORLEY, Salesman.” SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 225 Chump Change Loren Gatch Picture This: The American Banker Back in Spring of 2023, Mark Drengson, the mastermind behind SPMC’s “Banks and Bankers” database, added a feature to the bankers’ information profile that motivated me to sink some time into collecting one very specific piece of biographical information about the many thousands of national bankers in the database: their pictures. In one sense, knowing what bankers looked like seems trivial compared to more substantive information about their business lives and public careers. Still, there’s something about having somebody’s image that brings their biography to life, no matter how ordinary or uneventful those lives actually were. I have no particular idea about what a banker from that era is supposed to look like. I can’t shake the feeling though, that their physical appearance must have mattered in their line of work, in the same way perhaps that a bank building’s architecture was meant to signal the qualities of solidity and reliability that quelled customers’ fears about the safety of their money. In my quest to find bankers’ images, I began with the online sources that I knew. These consisted mostly of trade publications like Bankers Magazine, Chicago Banker, or Commercial West, and the various annual proceedings published by state bankers’ associations. Given that the national banking era formally ended in 1935, most of these publications are now out of copyright and thus available in full text either through Google Books or (often with better quality scanning) Internet Archive. Other online sources that are worth taking a look include Hathi Trust and the FRASER digital library of the St. Louis Fed. Anyone who has ever spent time with 19th century newspapers and magazines knows how forbidding their dense columns of text can appear, largely bereft as they were of illustrations (published books might at least feature steel engravings). However, with the development of halftone printing techniques by the early 20th century, the appearance and layout of mass production publications underwent a profound change. Photographic images (and not just lithographed engravings) began filling the pages of journals and magazines. What did American bankers of that era look like? Well, for starters they were almost without exception white and male, a straightforward reflection of the fact that they comprised the country’s financial elite at the time. Photography came on the scene just in time to capture the end of the great beard and mustache boom of the late 19th century. Thus, the contrast in appearance between a typically hirsute financier of 1900 and his smooth-chinned counterpart in 1920 can be startling. It was only after plowing through those banking and financial publications I was familiar with that my education in biographical sources really began. As I developed more efficient keyword searching and image clipping techniques, I’ve been able to cull images from the vast trove of local, county, and state histories through which Americans have chronicled and understood themselves. Many of these works appeared in the same fifty-year period between 1880 and 1930. In particular, I stumbled upon the strangest but most fruitful source of bankers’ pictures—that publishing genre which genealogical researchers have come to call “Mug Books.” These volumes featured austere and grandly factual titles like “Men of Minnesota” (or Kentucky, Ohio, etc.); variants included “Representative Men”, “Progressive Men”, “Notable Men”, and “Men of Mark.” Largely compilations of photographic portraits of the local worthies, these books were financed on a subscription model. A publisher’s sales representatives would canvass a given area, soliciting upfront payments from prominent citizens whose vanity and sense of social status were flattered by the prospect of their likenesses appearing in a work purporting to document the great and good. Once published, those books were in turn marketed to their very subjects, who might be ready to purchase literary keepsakes of their newly confirmed social prominence. If these books contained any biographical information, it was typically written in the most cloying and hagiographic language. Bankers, for example, were invariably described as wise, magnanimous, and public spirited, never as callous tightwads foreclosing on the mortgages of widows and orphans. In some awkward cases, bankers commemorated earlier in their careers with such fawning prose later found themselves hauled before the law as a result of some defalcation, even doing prison time. Men of Mark, indeed! After a year of intermittent searching, and several thousand pictures later, I have learned two things. First, I began doing this a lot more ignorant than I’d like to think I was about the nitty gritty of historical research. Second, I’ve come to expect that, whatever record I consult in the database, more often than not Adam Stroup has already been there, providing meticulous documentation of the lives of national bankers famous and obscure. Adam deserves a shout out from all of us for the prodigious work he has done. SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 226 The front of the Type 41 Treasury note endorsed by Major A. H. McLaws, QM Image used by permission: Bonanzacoins, eBay.com Maj. A. H. McLaws, Quarter Master Maj. Gen’l Lafayette McLaws’ Division Roger Adamek spotted an endorsement on eBay by a new quartermaster which has the highly unusual wording of “Transferred” to indicate a re- issuance of a Type 41 Confederate treasury note. The signature was difficult to identify because the “c” in “Mc” is represented by the starting flourish of “L” in “Laws.” There is no doubt about the identity, however, as McLaws signed forms preserved in the National Archives with the same flourish we see at the bottom of the endorsement. Ninety documents are found for McLaws in the National Archives on the website Fold3.com. Background Charles Derby discovered an online blog which brings A. H. McLaws to life: Abram Huguenin McLaws was born on April 13, 1823 in the City of Augusta, Georgia as the sixth and youngest child of James McLaws and Elizabeth V. Huguenin. Known as “Hu” to his friends and family, McLaws attended the prestigious University of Georgetown and Williams & Mary before standing for admission to the bar. ...Both [Hugh and his older brother Lafayette] were officers in the American Army during the Mexican Wars of the 1840s...Abram, a Major, and Lafayette, a Major General. During the Civil War, Lafayette rose to prominence as a two-star, division commanding general. Hugh, still suffering from debilitating war wounds, served in non-combat roles. The Quartermaster Column No. 36 by Michael McNeil This highly ununusal endorsement reads: “Transferred 18th / February 1863 / A H McLaws Maj / QM.” Image used by permission: Bonanzacoins, eBay.com SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 227 After the war,...A. H. McLaws returned to Augusta, where he became...prominent in local affairs.1 A. H. McLaws was the first superintendent of the public school system in Augusta. He died at age 78 at Augusta on October 12th, 1901.2 1861 A. H. McLaws was appointed Major & Quartermaster on November 16th, reporting to Gen’l Lafayette McLaws. 1862 A voucher for receipt of 80 bushels of corn by Maj. McLaws in Maryland on September 30th is consistent with the history of Gen’l McLaws’ Division at Harpers Ferry that month, serving with Gen’l Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. A detailed history of McLaws’ Division can be found online.3 McLaws signed a Special Requistion on November 12th at Richmond, noting the terrible conditions under which his division suffered. Special Requisitions required that the officer “certify that the above Requisition is correct, and that the articles specified are absolutely requisite for the public service, rendered so by the following circumstances,” where McLaws wrote, “That the troops are barefooted ― without a single blanket ― without tents & only 2 axes to a regiment.” His requisition included 450 axes, 9 packing boxes, 572 overcoats, 19 packing cases, 8 battle flags, 2 hospital tents and flies.” 1863 McLaws’ Division took part in Longstreet’s attack on July 3rd at Gettysburg, coming close to collapsing Union forces at Cemetery Ridge, but with heavy casualties. Two generals and six of the division’s 21 regiment commanders were killed.3 Maj. McLaws tendered his resignation on July 29th, claiming “Physical Disability” (a double hernia), and was appointed on September 2nd as a Major and Enrolling Officer by Col. Preston in the Bureau of Conscription, acting in the State of Georgia. The letter recommending him for this position stated that “He is understood to be an able energetic officer in administration, who has served with much gallantry, and to possess not only the talent but the force of character so essential in dealing with the business of Conscription.” McLaw’s Division was transferred to the Army of Tennessee in September and fought in the Battle of Chickamauga. In November it laid siege to Knoxville. The attack on Fort Sanders in Knoxville was a disaster, and Longstreet assigned blame to Gen’l McLaws, court-martialing him in December.3 1864 Gen’l McLaws was exonerated of two of the three charges against him on May 5th, but convicted of “failing in the details of his attack to make arrangements essential to his success.” The sentence was overturned by Adjutant Inspector General Samuel Cooper, but Gen’l Robert E. Lee refused to readmit Gen’l McLaws into the Army of Northern Virginia. He and his division were assigned by the War Department to the defense of Savannah, Georgia.3 Maj. McLaws signed a voucher for expenses at Augusta, Georgia on October 1st. Atlanta had fallen to Union forces early the previous month. McLaws was ordered to conscript men from the State of Georgia, and he noted expenses for board and hotels at Savannah on May 3rd to June 9th, at Macon on May 10th to 12th, Greensboro on May 22nd, and Social Circle and Madison on May 23rd. On December 21st a delegation of aldermen and ladies of the city of Savannah offered Gen’l W. T. Sherman the key to the city in exchange for protection of the city’s citizens and property. Sherman accepted this offer and telegraphed President Lincoln on Christmas Day, presenting him with the gift of Savannah. Hardee’s Corps, to which Gen’l McLaws’ Division was assigned, did not engage Sherman, but escaped on a pontoon bridge on the night of December 20th. There are no further military records for Major A. H. McLaws.4 Carpe diem SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 228 References: All military data was derived from National Archives documents on Fold3.com. 1. dublinlaurenscountygeorgia.blogspot.com/2013/06/hu-mclaws.html, accessed on 11 February 2024. Researched by Charles Derby. 2. Augusta Chronicle (Augusta Georgia), Sunday, October 13, 1901, page 8. Researched by Charles Derby. 3. civilwarintheeast/things/mclaws-division/, accessed 10 February 2024. 4. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman’s_March_to_the_Sea, accessed 10 February 2024. John C. Oeffinger. 2002. A Soldier’s General, The Civil War Letters of Major General Lafayette McLaws, The University of North Carolina Press. The letters are primarily between Lafayette and his younger brother, Hugh, the quartermaster. In this endorsement on a voucher McLaws writes the “c” as a flourish of “L,” just as we see on the treasury note endorsement. The ornate flourish under his signature is identical as well. Image: Fold3.com A page from a register showing $582.40 Interest Paid on eighty Type 41 treasury notes to A. H. McLaws by T. S. Metcalf, the depositary at Augusta, Georgia. The serial of the illustrated treasury note with McLaws’ endorsement is 160063, and this is close to the range of serials on the notes listed above. The date of issue on the front of the note, Januaury 2nd, 1863, is identical as well. McLaws takes the time to separate the “c” from the “L” in his signature above. Image: Fold3.com SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 229 UNESCO World Heritage Sites Depicted on Bank Notes – Armenia by Roland Rollins Armenia is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia, with ties to Europe. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south. There are at presently three UNESCO sites inscribed for Armenia, but only one appearing on their banknotes. Echmiatsin and Zvartnots UNESCO cultural site was added in 2000. The Cathedral and Churches of Echmiatsin and the Archaeological Site of Zvartnots are two prime examples of Armenian Church design. Echmiatsin is the center of the Armenian Church. It locates the Echmiatsin Cathedral, which was built in 480 (making it the most ancient church in Armenia). Six banknotes to date portray this site.  P36/B204a 100 Dram of 1993  P37/B205a 200 Dram of 1993  P48/B309 50,000 Dram of 2001  P60/BNP301 500 Dram of 2001  P-NL/B322 10,000 Dram of 2018  P-NL/B324 50,000 Dram of 2018 P37 200 Drams front with Church of Saint Hripsime in Echmiadzin P37 200 Drams reverse with ornamental designs SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 230 $MALL NOTE$ By Jamie Yakes The New Deal’s Silver Inflation This cartoon appeared in the Washington Post on August 4, 1934, a few weeks after Congress had passed the Silver Purchase Act in late June. It portrays an overriding concern of inflation at the time because the act authorized the Treasury to purchase a nearly unlimited amount of silver bullion and against it issue silver certificates. The amount of silver they could purchase was tied to the amount of gold they had, but because gold purchases increased after the United States became a net gold importer in 1934, so did their acquisition of silver. After the Silver Purchase Act became effective, the amount of outstanding silver certificates vastly expanded. In June 1934, there was $400 million, and that amount doubled by 1935, tripled by 1938, and quadrupled by 1940. By 1946, the outstanding amount had reached over $2 billion, a level that remained steady into the 1960s, when Congress, through several efforts, would revoke silver’s status as money. To finance silver purchases under the Silver Purchase Act, and then replace redeemed notes to maintain circulation over the ensuing decades, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing printed and the Treasury issued over twenty-two billion Series of 1934, 1935, and 1953, $1, $5, and $10 silver certificates. No wonder those notes are so common today. References: Huntoon, Peter. “Creation of Money During the Great Depression.” Paper Money Whole No. 266 (March/April 2010): 90 ———. “The End of Silver Certificates.” Paper Money Whole No. 335 (September/October 2021): 328 SPMC.org * Paper Money *May/June 2024 * Whole No. 351 231 8TH EDITION •20,000+ market valuations •650+ full-color images • Friedberg numbering system • All federal series • Fractional Currency, Treasury Notes of the War of 1812, encased postage stamps, error notes, and uncut sheets • Top 100 auction prices realized, 2022-23 • Detailed grading guide If you enjoy paper money, visit greysheet.com for up-to-date news, pricing, and research on U.S. and world-wide bank notes. 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 WORLD PAPER MONEY SIGNATURE® AUCTION HKINF - Hong Kong | June 18 View All Lots and Bid at HA.com/4051 DALLAS  |  NEW YORK  |  BEVERLY HILLS  |  CHICAGO  |  PALM BEACH LONDON  |  PARIS  |  GENEVA  |  BRUSSELS  |  AMSTERDAM  |  HONG KONG  |  TOKYO Always Accepting Quality Consignments in 50+ Categories Immediate Cash Advances Available 1.75 Million+ Online Bidder-MembersPaul R. Minshull #16591. BP 20%; see HA.com. 74550 For a free appraisal, or to consign to an upcoming auction, contact a Heritage Expert today. 800-872-6467, Ext. 1001 or Currency@HA.com China  People’s Bank of China 500 Yuan 1949 Pick 843a PMG Superb Gem Uncirculated 67 EPQ India  Government of India, Calcutta 2 Rupees, 8 Annas ND (1917) Pick 2 PMG Choice Uncirculated 64 Macau  Banco Nacional Ultramarino 100 Patacas 22.7.1919 Pick 9  PMG Very Fine 30 China  Netherlands Trading Society 50 Dollars 1.1.1922 Pick S460s Specimen  PMG Choice Uncirculated 64 Brunei  Negara Brunei Darussalam 10,000 Ringgit 1989 Pick 20a PMG Choice About Uncirculated 58 Singapore  Board of Commissioners of Currency 10,000 Dollars ND (1973) Pick 8A  PMG Extremely Fine 40