10 Cents 'Postage Currency' - 1st issue

Postage Currency was authorized by Congress in July 1862 as a direct stopgap after silver coin vanished from circulation almost overnight — hoarded by a public that didn't trust the Union's finances as the Civil War deepened. The idea was strikingly literal: reproduce actual postage stamp imagery on small paper notes, partly to reassure the public of their redeemability and partly because no alternative infrastructure existed yet for small-denomination fractional currency.

First-issue notes were perforated along the edges, mimicking stamp sheet production at the National Bank Note Company. That feature was dropped in later issues — the perforations slowed output and offered no practical benefit once the public had accepted the format.