100 Dollars

Pick 55 spans the transition between two distinct manufacturing realities. Early 1862 impressions were produced by Hoyer & Ludwig in Richmond, a lithographic firm pressed into currency work despite having no meaningful security printing background. Later in the series, production shifted to other Confederate contractors as the blockade tightened and quality materials — good rag paper above all — became genuinely difficult to source.

Counterfeiting of Confederate currency was rampant by 1862, much of it originating in the North as a deliberate economic warfare strategy. Some Northern-made fakes were technically superior to the originals, which says something about the procurement constraints under which Confederate printers were working.