Innehållsförteckning för April 2020 från Banknote Reporter

Banknote Reporter|April 2020

Chester, Vermont’s Unusual Bank History

This month I am excited to take you to the far north of New England, an area that I have not previously covered in all the years that I have written this column. Once again, an addition to my collection has motivated me to examine a new town, one that I hope you will enjoy. So, let’s journey to classic small town Vermont. Vermont is the second smallest state by population and the sixth smallest state by area, and, accordingly, was always a rare state for national bank notes. It only had 50 issuing towns and 80 charters making it one of the tougher states from which to obtain notes. However, because it was a classic New England state, many of its banks were early charters and thus there were…

6 min

Banknote Reporter|April 2020

Reader’s Showcase

Pete Papadeas has been collecting layout varieties on Series of 1929 notes with particular attention to the odd fonts, special symbols and punctuations used on New Jersey notes. A true prize along these lines that he found are the layouts used for this Woodstown bank. The bank received printings from three different sets of 1929 plates. The first was made by the Government Printing Office using a layout prepared at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing that was made as a stopgap measure to print the first printing for the bank because the contractor for the layouts, Barnhart Brothers & Spindler in Chicago, could not turn out their logotype plates fast enough to meet demand at the startup of the series. The BEP used the very unusual, scarce and highly…

1 min

Banknote Reporter|April 2020

PAPER MONEY MARKET

Shows to Look Forward To I’ve been following the Heritage Tuesday currency auctions and have found bargains there, especially in circulated items. I’ve purchased some Detroit Nationals and a number of Confederate notes lately. The auctions seem especially strong in Confederate and State Obsolete notes. I also noted a great deal of “Fancy” serial numbered $1 FRNs. If you like Repeaters, low numbers, or six or seven digits being the same on a note, you might want to look into this. Lyn Knight and Stack’s Bowers also has a number of internet auctions throughout the year. My success recently on the Heritage site was a 1928 $5 Minneapolis note in Choice 63 or 64 (as it wasn’t graded) for about 250, as it was bundled with two other notes. I…

3 min

Banknote Reporter|April 2020

SHOW CALENDAR

The BNR show calendar listings are restricted to those shows which have a specific paper money focus or which are large enough so that a significant number of tables of interest to currency collectors might be expected. Abbreviations used include, A: admission charge, if any; T: number of tables, ( ): number of numismatic-related tables at a multi-hobby show; n/a: information not available. ALABAMA Apr 3-4 AL, Gadsden. Northeast Alabama Coin Show. Gadsden Mall, 1001 Rainbow Drive. SH: 10am - 6pm. SP: Rainbow City Coin Club. A: Free. F: $100. Blaine L. Smith, 635 Gate 5 Road, Alexandria, AL, 36250. PH: 256- 820-9691 or blainelsmith@cableone.net. ARIZONA Apr 12 AZ, Chandler. Camelback Collectibles Coin & Stamp show. American Legion Post 35, 2240 W Chandler Blvd. SH: 8am - 2pm. A: Free.…

28 min

Banknote Reporter|April 2020

Charter Number Placements and Regional Letters on Series of 1882 and 1902 NBNs

Two of the visually most prominent overprinted items on Series of 1882 and 1902 nationals are the charter numbers and regional letters. Two varieties occur for each. The boldly overprinted charter number on the faces of $10, $20, $50 and $100 Series of 1882 brown backs was moved from a vertical position next to the left vignette to a horizontal position above the Treasury seal in September 1890. The move required that the Treasury seal be lowered. Both 1882 brown back and 1902 blue seal notes come with and without regional letters. The use of the letters spanned from 1902 to 1924. The purpose of this article is to explain why these varieties occurred and, as best as possible, pinpoint the changeover Treasury sheet serial numbers between the varieties. In…

7 min

Banknote Reporter|April 2020

PMG Certifies the ‘Holy Grail’ of Uncut Currency

Paper Money Guaranty (PMG) has certified a group of seven of the greatest uncut sheets of U.S. bank notes in existence, the firm announced in a March 5 press release. The seven sheets highlight the Monarch Collection, a collection of U.S. paper money curated by a collector decades ago, before the advent of paper money certification. The centerpiece of the Monarch Collection is the “Holy Grail” of uncut National Bank Notes: a sheet of four Serial Number 1 notes from the First Charter of National Bank Notes issued starting in 1865. The famed Serial Number 1 sheet, the only First Charter Serial Number 1 sheet known, is graded PMG 55 About Uncirculated and pedigreed to the Grinnell Collection, which was the most prestigious assemblage of U.S. paper money at the…

7 min

Banknote Reporter|April 2020

Concentration Camp Currency with Steven Feller - Part 1

I reached out to Silent Witnesses: Civilian Camp Money of World War II, co-author Steven Feller to answer some questions I had about concentration camp issues. Feller wrote the book along with his co-author daughter, Rachel (Ray). As a teenager living in Massachusetts, I had the privilege of having the opportunity to meet a camp survivor who was doing a small group speaking engagement at my school during the late 1980s. When reviewing bank note auction results for Bank Note Reporter I saw a note from a concentration camp. It was something that caused me a great deal of remembrance and reÚection upon the signi›cant relationship between history and paper money. The result was my consulting some books, doing some online research, and communicating with authors. I followed a path…

6 min

Banknote Reporter|April 2020

Note of the Month

For this month I’ll show you a wonderful job of deception. Here you see two notes from the Central Bank of China. Both started out life as a 1-yuan issue of 1936 but on the Chinese language face, you now see that the center characters and all four corners are not at all the same. Also, the two small characters on upper left and right have been removed. A very skillful job has created a purported 5-yuan out of the bottom piece. Now let’s see the back of this so-called “5 -yuan” note. The corner numerals are now all altered to be 5’s as would be expected. Since many Chinese people could not read English in 1936, the artist did not bother to change the true denomination as it reads…

1 min

Banknote Reporter|April 2020

Proof of the Month

This is a particularly attractive Series of 1882 brown back title block layout that I happened upon. It is an early one made in 1883 using George Casilear’s patented lettering process where the engravers created numerous alphabets of letters in various styles, put the letters individually on rolls, then when they needed to spell something out, they simply rolled in the letters onto the title block dies in the needed order from the appropriate rolls. The process was very efficient and eliminated the costly need to have an engraver hand-engrave text starting from scratch every time a new title block die had to be made. Many of the plates containing these layouts were replaced by so-call artistic hand-engraved layouts; however, no replacement was made for this one. The Cadiz bank…

1 min

Banknote Reporter|April 2020

About the Author

Born April 10, 1941, Bill Brandimore is a collector of coins and currency. He received a Bachelor’s degree from Wayne State University and a Master’s from Washington State University. He had a 26-year career with the Detroit Police Dept. and retired as Inspector. He then served for 17 years as Chief of Police in Wausau, Wis. He is the past president of Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association, the Samoset Council of BSA, the Central States Numismatic Society, and the Numismatics of Wisconsin. He is the editor and president of Paper Money Collectors of Michigan. He is the president of the Fractional Currency Collectors Board. He is a member of the American Numismatic Association, Chicago Coin Club, Michigan State Numismatic Society, Central States Numismatic Society, to name a few. His special…

1 min

Banknote Reporter|April 2020

Stamp Money of 20th Century America

C. Sam Carlson, Chicago, Ill. No date (1950s). 4 cents Lincoln in brass encasement, medium narrow rim. 37mm. This encasement and all others of the same general appearance were made by R. H. Rosholm. Chicago Numismatic Roundtable C.N.R. 1952 Six stars for the six members (Rosholm, Carlson, Jonas, Rackus, Keefer and Cederlund). 37mm. 1 cent Washington in copper case. 3 cents Lincoln with aluminum rim and brass back. 5 cents with reddish brown background. Copper case with aluminum rim. 10 cents, all details as 5 cents above. Chicago Numismatic Round Table C.N.R. 1952 1 cent Washington in copper encasement, wide rim. 37mm. 3 cents Lincoln in brass encasement, medium narrow aluminum rim. 5 cents Monroe in copper case, wide rim. Reportedly 100 pieces made. Chicago Numismatic Round Table 20th Anniversary…

2 min

Banknote Reporter|April 2020

Dix Noonan Webb’s World Bank Note Auction Has Wide Scope

The British and World bank note auction held by Dix Noonan Webb included some great examples. The auction contained some note listings from two named collections, Sir David Kirch and Yves Cataroche. There were specimen notes, such as the Bank of England Marshall £5 dated 1854. The posted gross total was £338,880 ($437,000 USD) including buyer’s premium and there were 938 lots. Four of the five bank notes I followed exceeded their estimates at hammer. The first, Lot 248, was a P-194, £100, Clydesdale & North of Scotland Bank Limited note dated 2 May 1951. The serial number is A003448. The front of the note features King’s College at Aberdeen at lower left, Glasgow Cathedral at lower right and has the signature of J. J. Campbell. The note graded a…

2 min