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Purchase Authentic American Fractional Currency 1862-1876 |
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Here To Move To Page Bottom And Access Links To Our Present Offerings
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Imagine going
into a convenience store to pick up a few essentials, say, some soda, chips,
and assorted chocolates. You don't have exact change. As a matter of fact
you don't have any change, and neither does the clerk. "No problemo," says
the clerk. "You can get a bigger bag of chips, give back the Hershey with
almonds, or maybe pick up a pack of gum, or buy a new comb. How about a
comb?"
Welcome to America in the mid 1800s. An article from a newspaper, the "Washington Star," from the period reads: ". . . In 1862 small change became very scarce. . .It was more than a day's search to find a five-cent silver piece." |
| Civil War was about to cross the Mason Dixon line
and the political and economic future of the fledgling union was a hard
read. The country's only mint in Philadelphia had been in production less
than a hundred years, the first coins rolling out in 1793, and keeping silver
and gold coins in the marketplace had been a problem since the mints inception.
As war loomed, hoarding coinage became a national obsession. Reportedly,
the floor of a building in New York used to stockpile copper collapsed under
the weight of the tons of squirreled away pennies and half pennies it was
supporting.
Necessity quickly mothered a number of trial solutions by inventive merchants, banks, and institutions, including promissory notes, metal tokens, and attempts to use regular postage stamps as change. But the public didn't take to wooden nickels, promissory notes too easily broken, or tokens amounting to nothing more than gestures. Clearly the federal government---which was preoccupied with first avoiding, then waging, a civil war---would have to become involved. All Notes Offered Below
Shown Actual Size Purchase Avalilable Offerngs of Issue One Purchase Avalilable Offerngs of Issue Two Purchase Avalilable Offerngs of Issue Three Purchase Avalilable Offerngs of Issue Four Purchase Available Offerings of Issue Five
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In 1862, General F.E. Spinner, then Treasurer of the United States, ordered that some postage stamps and blank paper on which government securities were normally printed be sent to his office. He cut some of the paper to small uniform sizes and proceeded to paste a few of the stamps in an orderly fashion onto the cut pieces of treasury paper. Spinner's models were quickly
adopted and in 1862 the first of five separate production issues that
would stretch to 1876 entered the marketplace. The 5, 10, 25, and 50-cent
denominations of the first issue bore the name "Postage Currency" across
the top, but all issues thereafter were stamped, and became known as,
"Fractional Currency." Please use the links below to find out more about the history of these exquisite examples of Americana, and to visit some of our sister sites. |
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