Banknote Reporter December 2021

As we approach the end of another year with COVID still a national issue, I thought we would visit a couple cute small towns in Upstate New York. I have always found this part of the country full of picturesque small towns and extremely friendly people. So, I yanked a few notes from my collection, and we will be looking at Lacona and Silver Springs, N.Y. Lacona is a very small town in Oswego County in the northwestern part of the state, just east of Lake Ontario. It is situated roughly halfway between Syracuse and Watertown on Interstate 81. New York has an antiquated locational system whereby many small towns are called “villages”, and many villages are included in somewhat larger small towns referred to as “towns.” Hence, the Village of…

Iowa national bank note specialist Cody Regennitter acquired this New London, Iowa, 1902 plain back with an inverted 8 in the left overprinted charter number. Just a little before Cody’s note appeared, Adam Stroup found the Toledo with an inverted 8 also in the left charter number. Many of the 8s used to print the charter numbers have a decidedly smaller upper loop like these, and occasionally that piece of type was inverted when set. Compare the 8s in the two charter numbers on the Toledo note and notice that the one on the right has equal size loops. Stroup’s Toledo is a date back and is the first date back I recall seeing with an invert. This was an easy mistake to make. I found one in the right…

Richfield is a suburb on the south side of Minneapolis immediately west of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. The Richfield National Bank was organized Jan. 31, 1922. Richfield originally was a sprawling town, pieces of which were split off into smaller towns or annexed to larger adjacent entities. In 1927, part of the town was annexed to Minneapolis. The bank was situated in that fragment so the bank’s management applied for a title change to reflect their new jurisdiction. Both proofs carry the Jan. 31, 1922 date of organization as their plate dates. Title change dates ceased to be used as plate dates early in 1919. Instead, the most recent former plate date was copied to the new plates. A longstanding protocol was that the Treasury signatures used on most…

The Stack’s Bowers December 2021 Hong Kong Collectors Choice Online Auction features World, Hong Kong and Chinese paper money. Live bidding begins on December 3. World paper money is maintaining its hold on collectors’ interest. Below are a few highlights of Stack’s upcoming auction. All images courtesy of Stack’s Bowers.…

Over the decades, first Doug Walcutt and then Huntoon caused a lot of ink to be spilled over our finding that there were three distinct varieties of the Battle of Lexington vignette on the left side of the Original Series, Series of 1875 and Series of 1882 $20s. The easiest place to spot the different varieties is to look for the presence or absence of the 75 just above the shoe of the wounded man. The 75 is a partial date—the 75 in 1775—that is on the painting from which the vignette was copied. The 75 was all but removed from variety 1. A light image of the 75 is visible on Variety 2, Variety 3 sports a bold image of the 75. All three varieties were used on Series of…

The October Long Beach show was both voluminous and uplifting. Prices for High Grade notes were strong, and $500 and $1,000 Federal Reserve Notes were very strong. There were lots of Large Size notes to choose from and a good helping of National bank notes. A tip to Fractional collectors, however. Look to Tuesday night Heritage auctions, as prices for Fractional notes seem much lower than in major auctions. I am reluctant to price a note at a level that might be doubled with Fractional notes in well publicized auctions. Legal Tender and Federal Reserve notes were in good supply. Federal Reserve bank notes have stayed fairly strong over the last few major auctions. In the recent past this series seems to have been a bit erratic. Nice condition notes…