Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
State banks opposed recharter of the national bank because when state bank notes were deposited with the First Bank of the United States, the Bank would present these notes to state banks and demand gold in exchange, which limited the state banks' ability to issue notes and maintain adequate reserves of specie, or hard money.
Before the Civil War, the United States used gold and silver coins as its official currency. Paper currency in the form of banknotes was issued by privately owned banks, the notes being redeemable for specie at the bank's office. Such notes had value only if the bank could be counted on to redeem them; if a bank failed, its notes became worthless.
The United States Notes were dramatically redesigned for the Series of 1869, the so-called Rainbow Notes. The notes were again redesigned for the Series of 1874, 1875 and 1878. The Series of 1878 included, for the first and last time, notes of $5,000 and $10,000 denominations. The final across-the-board redesign of the large-sized notes was the ...
National Gold Bank Notes were issued by private banks, mostly from California. The concept is similar to that of the National Bank Notes, the difference being that National Gold Bank Notes were redeemable in gold. They were issued from 1870 to 1875 in denominations of $5, $10, $20, $50, $100 and $500.
This made counterfeiting bank notes harder still, at least in the short term, and in 1803 the number of forged bank notes fell to just 3000, compared to 5000 the previous year. [63] Banks asked skilled engravers and artists to help them make their notes more difficult to counterfeit during the same time period, which historians refer to as "the ...
Notes of the Bank of Singapore, Michigan. Wildcat banking was the issuance of paper currency in the United States by poorly capitalized state-chartered banks.These wildcat banks existed alongside more stable state banks during the Free Banking Era from 1836 to 1865, when the country had no national banking system.
Most likely, the American Bank Note Company engraved the printing plates for $5 and $10 notes while the National Bank Note Company engraved the printing plates for the $20 notes. All of the Demand Notes were printed by the American Bank Note Company. [5] As designed, they were of the same size, and in appearance closely resembled banknotes. [8]
Bank notes were legal tender issued by state banks which could be exchanged for an amount of gold at any bank. Both gold and bank notes circulated as mediums of exchange. On February 25, 1862, the U.S. passed the First Legal Tender Act to help finance the Civil War. The act changed the economy to a fiduciary standard based on a fiat currency ...