Innehållsförteckning för March 2024 från Banknote Reporter

As an official auctioneer of the New York International Numismatic Convention, Stack’s Bowers Galleries presented one of the year’s most exciting auction events, with $12,933,114 realized across the categories of ancient coins, world coins, and world currency. This impressive result was engendered by the many captivating and rare numismatic jewels that were featured in this year’s catalog. The Rothschild-Piatigorsky Collection brought numerous Russian treasures to the auction block, including an incredibly rare Gold Imperial Pattern from Nicholas II that realized $360,000 and a stunning 10 Rubles of Peter III that sold for $168,000. Among the collection’s many other stars were an astonishing 25 Rubles of Alexander II (from a mintage of just 100) that surpassed its $150,000 high estimate to realize $240,000 and an important Catherine I 2 Rubles that…

MARCH 2024 U.S. Paper Money Price Guide Our fiat money bank notes have not lost any of their popularity despite what cashless society advocates may claim. According to the most recent issue of the U.S. Treasury Department’s quarterly Treasury Bulletin, the per capita amount of physical cash (not including bank deposits) for every U.S. citizen is now at $6,998. Most of this money is in foreign hands. The number of dollars in foreign hands is likely to continue to increase. Some of this will likely be fueled by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing having printed more than 756 million $50 bank notes during 2023, this being a record number for that denomination. The $50 note represented 3.5 percent of the total number of bank notes printed during 2019 and…

Canada is the second largest country on the planet. It stretches, like America, from sea to shining sea. It started out as a Province after the British won full control from the French and became a Confederation in 1867. Before that time several banks issued notes, much like our large American Obsolete notes. Those notes and Government notes were large in size like U.S. notes until 1935 when Canada reduced their notes to a small size much like our American-sized notes that began in 1928. Throughout these issues, English Monarchs were featured as a result of British control and membership in the British Empire. Queen Victoria (born in 1819, became Queen in 1837, married in 1840, and died in 1902) was the first monarch to appear on Canadian notes. Her…

The idea behind cyber currency is that there is no need to use physical cash. Considering that, it isn’t unreasonable to ask why a tangible form of cryptocurrency is now being offered in a physical bank note format. Cryptocurrency payments exist as digital rather than as physical entries to an online database describing specific transactions. As such they are a substitute for physical money being carried and exchanged in what is otherwise known as “the real world.” Bitcoin is generally considered to be the most secure and decentralized form of cryptocurrency, a cryptocurrency being a digital asset. Bitcoin includes smart contracts, a transparent ledger system, and employs encryption techniques. While some individuals may feel safer using cryptocurrency than traditional forms of cash due to what is perceived to be its…

Cody Regennitter, manager of the National Bank Note Collectors Facebook forum, won this curious Port Huron, Mich., note in an October 2022 Heritage sale. What caught his eye were the unusual 4s in the right charter number. All are decidedly wide and atypical. What is so interesting is that there are three of them. It is apparent that when the pressman was setting up the type in the overprinting machine, he had to go out of his way to find three that matched rather than allowing a mix, which would have looked even stranger. Not an error but certainly unusual. We wonder if they were used in all four plate positions for that press run.…

Reader Arthur Smith asked why the catalog listings for The Centreville National Bank of Thurman, Ohio, charter 2181, list Centreville as the town rather than Thurman. This turns out to be a tale of a bank title that just didn’t come out right thanks to a mistake the bankers made when they submitted their title coupled with a subsequent mistake made by a clerk in the Comptroller’s office when he ordered the first plates for the bank. A little background will set the stage. There were several communities called Centreville or Centerville in Ohio over the history of the state. The Centerville that ended up with a post office by that name is the small city of Centerville located 16 miles south of Dayton. Curiously, the business district in the…

Arthur Smith submitted this fabulous red seal as a candidate for this space and I couldn’t get on it fast enough. There are so many threads from it, we’ll just have to see where it takes us. Let’s top down starting with the note itself. With the selvage, you know it was saved as a keepsake by one of the bankers. Scrawled in pencil in the margin is “signed July 6, 1907, first one.” A quick look at the officers for the bank in the Comptroller of the Currency’s annual reports reveals that the cashier was Ahijah W. Miles, who served from the bank’s founding in 1883 through 1919. Thomas Corwin Leonard served as president from 1908 through 1932, so it is obvious that he stepped in as vice president…