Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2022 i Banknote Reporter

Have you ever encountered a $2 bill with the corners torn off? I haven’t, but then again I rarely see any $2 bills. Not seeing $2 bills in circulation is not an uncommon experience, either now or throughout the denomination’s history. In 1962, when Kalvart K. Tidwell wrote “The Two Dollar Bill” for the May 1962 issue of Coins magazine, few were ever lucky (or unlucky) enough to encounter $2 notes on a regular basis. “Not long ago a customer handed the clerk a bill to pay for the item in question,” Tidwell wrote. “The young lady stopped short, examined the note closely and asked, ‘Is this real money?’ “After she was assured that it was real, good and ordinary U.S. currency in common use, she hesitantly rang up the…

Four First Series Renminbi bank notes each realized prices over $100,000. They were among dozens of Chinese bank notes in a pair of Spink auctions held on June 25, 2022. The top lot was a China / People’s Republic 1951 10,000 Yuan graded PMG 40 Extremely Fine (CSS81, lot 87) that realized HK$1.74 million (about $221,700 USD). This example of a high denomination note that is known as “Running Horses” is regarded as one of the greatest treasures in Chinese paper money. Another rarity, a China / People’s Republic 1951 500 Yuan graded PMG 64 Choice Uncirculated (CSS81, lot 82), realized HK$1.5 million (about $191,100 USD). This note is one of 27 examples in the PMG Population Report, with only two others possessing a higher grade. Like other bank notes…

The $1 dollar Bank of Upper Canada note illustrated here bearing a plate date of Jan. 1, 1861, is a truly significant early piece of Canadian currency. The Province of Upper Canada was an irregularly shaped sprawling region in what is now eastern Canada that looks on a map like a profile of someone’s westward leaning lower leg, toes facing west, that is stepping on lakes Erie and Onterio. Its northern boundary was the divide that separates lands to the south within the province from those to the north that drain to Hudson Bay. Quebec Province bordered it to the northeast. See the map in the Upper Canada wiki. It was established by Great Britain in 1791. Much of it was settled by Loyalist refugees from the United States after…

Greg Alexander brought this Series of 1875 $5 to my attention with Berkshire engraved in a very attractive font. The Berkshire Mountains and county of western Massachusetts are named for Berkshire County in England, site of Windsor Castle west of London. North Adams is in the northern part of the country. The thing that caught Greg’s attention was that the four subjects on the plate from which this proof had been lifted were reentered to refurbish the plate so little stars were placed to the left of the upper plate letters to signify the reentry. 31,336 sheets of $5 Series of 1875 notes were issued from the bank so the A-B-C-D plate became worn and had to be reentered. Reentry signifies that rolls with the vignettes standing in relief on…

The weekly Heritage auctions have been featuring a lot of Encased Postage examples lately. They are scarce and interesting numismatic pieces from the Civil War period. In August of 1862, John Gault received a patent for his encasement of postage stamps in a copper shell with a mica window so you could see the value of the postage stamps inside. All this was going on because the war scared people into hoarding their silver change, making retail commerce very difficult. Of course, along with the stamp came advertising on the reverse of the copper shell. Several businesses along the East Coast and the Midwest bought into the idea. The values ranged from one cent to ninety cents and the stamps were from the 1861 U.S. Postage series. This wasn’t the…

June 21, WASHINGTON – Today, ahead of Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen’s visit to the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, President Joe Biden announced the appointment of Lynn Malerba, Lifetime Chief of the Mohegan Tribe, to serve as Treasurer of the United States. Chief Malerba is the first Native American to serve as the nation’s Treasurer. To underscore the Department’s commitment to Tribal nations, Treasury also announced the establishment of a new Office of Tribal and Native Affairs. The new office will be led by the new Treasurer and coordinate Tribal relations across the Department. Chief Malerba became the 18th Chief of the Mohegan Tribe in 2010 and is the first woman to serve in this position in the Tribe’s modern history. She previously served as a…

Hundreds of historic bank notes are featured in an upcoming sale presented by renowned Greece-based auction house A. Karamitsos. Online bidding for Auction 698 (Part A and Part B) is already underway, with the sale concluding September 11, 2022. Leading the sale is a Greece / Ionian Islands ND (1941) 500 Drachmai graded PMG 55 About Uncirculated EPQ (Part A, lot 6574). This note dates to World War II, when the Ionian Islands, located off the west coast of Greece, were occupied by the Axis powers, which included Italy. This note has a starting price of €3,500 (about $3,500 USD). Other highlights in the sale include: • an Italy / Dodecanese Islands 1943 100 Lire graded PMG 25 Very Fine NET (Part A, lot 6577) with a starting price of…

We’ve always known that Bolivia was a landlocked country with no access to seaports. That’s what we learned in school, and that’s why I was so surprised to find this particular overprint on a Bolivian note. In Spanish on the face and English on the back, the red overprinted message is the same: “Sportsmen of the World, Bolivia has the right to recover its sea.” I surmise that at some international sports competition that included participation from Bolivia, such overprints were available to the public. This example was found in a miscellaneous group of notes, and it immediately piqued my curiosity as to why Bolivia would make such a claim. The dispute between Bolivia and Chile began in 1879, when Chile invaded the port city of Antofagasta on its northern…