Innehållsförteckning för November 2024 från Banknote Reporter

Beginning in 1775, leaders of the 11 colonies began issuing currency for the entire group of colonies, authorizing their issue at 11 different meetings. The first notes were authorized on May 10, 1775. They included denominations of $1 through $8 and a twenty and a thirty. The notes had identical tree leaves on the backs of each denomination. This was to prevent counterfeiting. Ben Franklin provided the paper, and they were printed by Hall and Sellers of Philadelphia. The notes were actually issued in August 1775 to pay the initial expenses of the war and were to be repaid by taxes to be levied by each colony separately and to be levied on a quotabasis. The only difference in notes of this issue was in the $20 note of the…

Rare bank notes from Islamic countries, including Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria landed in new collections when they were sold in Heritage’s The Ibrahim Salem Collection of Islamic Countries Part II & III Signature® Auction Oct. 24-25. The auction was the third featuring notes from Salem, whose collection of bank notes from around the globe is considered one of the finest anywhere. Future auctions from his collection will feature United States bank notes and notes from World Peninsulas and Islands. “Ibrahim Salem’s collection of world paper money is on the short list of the finest assemblages in the world,” says Dustin Johnston, Vice President of Numismatics at Heritage Auctions. “He has spent a lifetime curating this remarkable collection, and it reflects the overlap between his professional career as one of…

Definition: Unique—being the only one of its kind, unlike anything else. Everyone in numismatics loves the unique. The term variously refers to a single object that is the only one of its kind or a group of objects that are distinctly different from others of the same class. Of course, the charm here is that uniqueness can be leveraged into a high price. Many collectors derive a sense of power through ownership of unique items. In some, this manifests in the form “I have it, you want it, but you can’t have it!” Nah, we don’t know anyone in this game like that! One result is that everyone tries to eke out something unique in what they have. Consequently, our auction catalogs and articles are so overflowing with the word…

Perhaps the cashless society concept is making gains in some parts of the world, but not so in the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan. A recently released report by the Association of Financiers of Kazakhstan concluded that non-cash transactions had slowed threefold. In response, on July 25, the National Bank of Kazakhstan reported the country’s nominal face value of coins and bank notes to total 4.4 trillion tenge or nearly $9.2 million U.S. dollars. A U.S. dollar can be exchanged for about 475 tenge. The breakdown is about 4.3 trillion tenge in bank notes and about 100 billion tenge in coins that are in circulation. This includes a recently redesigned 10,000-tenge bank note released on June 28. Notes of the same denomination dated 2012 will remain as legal tender for…

This very significant proof went under the hammer as lot 20214 in the Stocks-Bowers Spring 2024 Showcase Auction held in March 2024. It was lifted from a master die used to produce a roll to lay in the generic face image of $5 Series of 1882 notes onto printing plates. Everything about it speaks to it being made at the outset of the series in 1882. This interpretation is supported by the Treasury signatures of Bruce-Gilfillan, which were current from May 21, 1881, to March 31, 1883, and as such were the first to appear on Series of 1882 Brown Backs. Those signatures are stacked instead of arranged in line above the space for the title block, a layout style that was phased out beginning in late 1886. The Bureau…

It can be challenging to take the temperature of the market for bank notes, but if the results of the August Stack’s Bowers Galleries Showcase Auction are a good barometer, then the market is active and, for the most part, continuing to experience stable pricing. It’s difficult to gauge the market for National Bank notes since many collectors seek the issues of a specific bank, city, or state. This was apparent in the Stack’s auction. There was particular interest in California notes. A Montana Territory national brought a strong five-figure price as well. Another challenge to gauge is the market interest in special serial numbers, which in this sale brought strong prices. Experimental notes were hot as well. A seldom available 1861 Confederate $10 was bid 36 percent higher than…

Ahuge selection of European bank notes, with an emphasis on Polish rarities, was offered in a Warszawskie Centrum Numizmatyczne auction on Oct. 19, 2024. Among the highlights of the auction was a Poland / Russian Administration 1841 3 Rubel pedigreed to the Lucow Collection and graded PMG 20 Very Fine (lot 42), with an estimate of about €13,800 (about $15,400). The rarity contains the signature ofJózef Gabriel Lubowidzki, who was a member of the Polish Congress in the early 1800s and was the vice president of the Bank of Poland, which was established in 1828. Of this particular catalog number, there are only four examples in the PMG Population Report, with this note being tied for the finest graded among the group. Other notes in this auction included: • a…

Welcome to part 3 of our in-depth exploration of U.S.-issued $1,000 notes. The first two parts focused on Colonial, Confederate, Large and Small Size notes. In part 3 and part 4 (in next month’s issue), we will explore $1,000 notes on Obsolete and College currency notes. Before the government started issuing federally circulated currency in 1861, it was left to individual banks to print their own paper money. The U.S. Treasury had been minting silver, gold and copper coins since the early 1790s. They were backed by the intrinsic value of the precious metal contained in the coin. That in and of itself always ensured the coin would hold its value. Entire governments could collapse, but gold or silver coins would always retain their value. However, the largest denomination of…