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1 Dollar United States Treasury, 'Rainbow Note'
| Issuer | United States Treasury |
|---|---|
| Year | 1869 |
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| Printer | Bureau of Engraving and Printing |
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| Obverse description | At left, an intaglio vignette of Christopher Columbus sighting land; at center, a portrait of George Washington after Gilbert Stuart's painting, rendered in intaglio engraving. The note is printed over a multicolored underprint of red, blue, and green hues — the hallmark of the 'Rainbow Note' series — with ornate lathe-work guilloche borders framing the entire composition. Denomination and legal tender inscriptions appear in letterpress within the decorative panel. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | This Note is a Legal Tender at its face value for all debts public and private, except duties on imports and interest on the public debt. Counterfeiting or altering this note or passing any counterfeit or alteration of it or having in possession any false or counterfeit plate or impression of it, or any paper made in imitation of the paper on which it is printed is felony, and is punishable by $5,000 fine, or 15 years imprisonment at hard labor or both. |
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| Comments |
The "Rainbow Note" designation refers to the entire 1869 Legal Tender series, which replaced the drabber first-issue greenbacks with a deliberate shift toward polychrome printing as an anti-counterfeiting measure. The thinking was sound: reproducing precise color registration across multiple ink passes was far beyond the reach of most contemporary forgers.
Albert Sealey's engraving work on this denomination is among the finest produced by the BEP in its early years. The 1869 series was also the first to use a distinctive red serial number combined with a red Treasury seal — both features that collectors now use to quickly authenticate against later Legal Tender issues that superficially resemble them.