Banknote Reporter September 2022

As summer begins to wind down here in the Mid-Atlantic States, I suppose we can be thankful that it was a pleasant summer, sans any of the floods, wildfires and intense baking heat that has plagued much of the country this year. In that vein, I thought we would look into Eastern Pennsylvania coal country and visit picturesque Tower City. Interstate 83 North from Baltimore ends just north of Harrisburg at Interstate 81, which winds its way northwest through the old coal country of Pennsylvania’s Appalachian and Pocono Mountains towards Scranton. I have made this trip many times, and each time a different exit ramp invites me to veer off the highway and explore the scenic byways and small towns of this region. Such was the case with Tower City. Tower City,…

The bank overprints on most Series of 1929 national bank notes were printed from logotype plates manufactured by Chicago contractor Barnhart Brothers & Spinder (BBS). They came in sets of six 1-subject plates made from a hard durable metal alloy. The six 1-subject plates were mounted by the BEP on a flatbed typographical printing press and locked into place for use. The layouts on the logotypes were reproduced by a photo engraving technique that began with a 1-subject film composite of the bank information. The same film was used to reproduce the images on each of the six logotypes. When a duplicate set of logotypes was required and all the bank information remained the same, that same film was retrieved to make the duplicates. Therefore, the printed images from the duplicates…

The use of India’s ₹2000 (rupee) denomination bank notes is nose diving. On the surface this may appear to be strange, considering it is the highest denomination bank note in circulation. The exchange rate was ₹2,000 to $25.78 at the time this article was being written. The ₹2000 bank note denomination was issued for the first time in November 2016 following the demonetization of Reserve Bank of India notes of ₹500 and ₹1,000 values. The denomination was introduced to ensure sufficient value in physical currency was in circulation as the other two denominations were being dropped in an attempt to curb what the central bank called black money (money traded on the black market) and counterfeits. The two denominations were dropped on short notice. Citizens were unable to redeem them, leading to…

Most U.S. currency collectors have heard of the Aldrich-Vreeland (Emergency Currency) Act passed May 30, 1908, that was the legislation responsible for the Series of 1882 and 1902 date back national bank notes. That legislation provided a mechanism between 1908 and 1915 that would permit bankers to deposit securities other than U.S. government bonds to obtain short-term increases in their circulations. Aldrich and Vreeland were the architects behind passage of that legislation. Each signed as president one of the notes in the fabulous pair illustrated here during their earlier careers as bankers. Steve Schroeder and Mark Drengson spotted these occurrences and brought them to my attention. Here is a brief sketch of Aldrich and Vreeland. Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich (1841-1915) is listed as president of The First National Bank of Providence in…

The Railroad National Bank of Roseville is the only bank with railroad in its title in California and as such is highly prized by California collectors. Notes from the bank are very scarce with but a handful of low-grade survivors reported from a circulation of $50,000. Roseville is located 20 miles northeast of Sacramento a bit north of I80. It was incorporated as a city in 1909 three years after the Southern Pacific Railroad moved its facilities there from adjacent Rocklin. What followed was a period of expansion, with the community building more than 100 structures, including the Pacific Fruit Express building in 1913, which was the largest ice manufacturing plant in the world. The city was primarily a railroad town for decades, with the railroad employing up to 1,225…

Polymer rather than paper is becoming popular as the host on which bank notes are being printed by an ever-expanding number of countries. Polymer has several advantages including its durability and difficulty to be counterfeited. With all the pluses that line up to favor polymer over paper, why the Philippines is having so much trouble wrapping itself around the idea paper is passé; polymer bank notes should be in their future. There have been recent reports of merchants refusing to accept the new Philippine 1,000-peso polymer bank notes simply because the notes had been folded. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas or Philippines Central Bank recently released guidelines on the proper way to handle polymer bank notes. On July 13, Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III asked the central bank to stop printing or…