Banknote Reporter July 2022

For this month’s article, I was perusing my collection of Series of 1882 notes and spied one that got me doing a Google search on its town. Sufficiently captivating, with the bank building still standing, Woodsfield, Ohio, would be a cool subject for our sojourn this time around. So, let’s check it out! Woodsfield, Ohio, is the seat of Monroe County, a rural subdivision located in eastern Ohio on the border with West Virginia, about 30 miles north of Marietta, Ohio, and about 15 miles northwest of Sistersville, W. Va. It has a current population of around 2,600 and is the largest town in Monroe County. Founded in 1814, the town was named Woodsfield after Archibald Woods, who established the community. Woodsfield has been Monroe County’s only seat of government. According…

This imposing Portuguese cheque originally to be issued by the Banco Nacional Ultramarino bears an overprint of a section of that bank established in 1929 in London. The Anglo-Portuguese Colonial and Overseas Bank Limited is shown twice in red on this fiscal paper made out for U.S. $491.86. Such an overprint is fairly frequently necessitated when a new entity takes over some position and no papers with the changed name have been printed yet. This London bank was set up no doubt because world trade was on the increase (yet the Great Depression was beginning to be felt as well). The Banco Nacional Ultramarino was established in Lisbon in 1864 as Portugal’s way of handling the fiscal and monetary needs of its far-flung colonies. It expanded quite rapidly; the next year…

It was the convention from 1882 through the end of 1897 to use the date of charter as the plate date on plates made for new banks. This was done for the $5 plate for this South Omaha bank chartered in 1886; specifically, Dec. 27, 1886. The practice changed after 1897, and they used the date of organization on plates for new banks. In contrast, if the bankers ordered a new combination mid-series between 1882 and 1898, the plate date on it corresponded closely to when the plate was ordered. However, when the South Omaha bankers ordered their 50-100 plate in August 1898, someone reached back for the date of organization—Dec. 17, 1886—for that plate as if the bank was new in 1898. The irony was that the much younger…

Mark Green landed this to-die for attractive small-town Oregon note from Silverton, a well-centered note with strong stamped signatures of president Julius Alm and cashier T. P. Ristergen. The bank had a modest $25,000 circulation for its entire life beginning in 1917 until it failed in 1932. This is the second large note reported from the bank in the National Currency Foundation census. Silverton typically speaks to silver mining activity but that’s not the case here. Silverton is a farming community 50 miles south of Portland complete with major Christmas tree farms on the east side of the Willamette Valley. The town name was derived from Silver Creek, which passes through it. The creek most likely was named for the silver glisten of the basalt rocks over which it flows…

Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) has officially launched pack grading for those who wish to submit their bank note packs for encapsulation. The pack holders, which allow for half (50) or full (100) consecutive serial-numbered bank notes to be encapsulated in a single holder, are great for grading bank note packs whose historic or collectible significance is better maintained by keeping the notes physically together. “The benefit of grading an entire pack of bank notes rather than individual notes has a lot to do with certain collectible characteristics that are unique to packs of bank notes, such as keeping together a run of notes with consecutive numbers, consecutive Star Notes, and the like,” explains Stephanie Sabin, PCGS president. “There are even cases where a pack of notes may be historical or…

The numismatics market hasn’t seen many issues in correlation to the current economy or the bullion market. Keeping an eye on Bank Note Reporter’s sister publication Numismatic News can provide insights into the thriving coin market; bank notes have not been left behind. Prices have been on the rise for both notes and coins. Stack’s Bowers Galleries June Collectors Choice auction is a prime example of rising prices with bids already setting the bar high for the rest of the auction, which closes June 29. Images courtesy of Stack’s Bowers.…