10 Cents 'Fractional Currency' - 5th series

The Fifth Issue fractional notes were the last attempt by the Treasury to maintain a small-denomination paper currency that had existed since 1862, when hoarding of silver coins during the Civil War created a severe shortage of small change. By 1874, the political will to continue the series was fading — the Specie Resumption Act would pass the following year, and redemption of fractional currency began in earnest in 1876, with hundreds of millions of notes destroyed in the process.

The Columbian Bank Note Company's involvement in this series is itself a footnote: much of the Fifth Issue printing was handled by the Treasury's own Bureau of Engraving and Printing, with Columbian playing a supplementary role. Surviving examples from this printer attribution are correspondingly less common than their BEP counterparts.