100 Dollars American Express Travelers Cheque

American Express travelers cheques occupy an unusual corner of notaphily — they are not currency, not scrip, not bonds, yet they circulated globally as a de facto monetary instrument for decades. The American Bank Note Company printed these under long-standing contract; ABNCo's intaglio work for American Express maintained consistent security standards across the series even as the cheque's design was periodically refreshed through the 1960s and 1970s.

The countersignature requirement — the holder signs twice, once at purchase and once at the point of exchange — was American Express's core anti-fraud mechanism, introduced by Marcellus Berry in 1891 and unchanged in principle through this entire period. Collectors should note that uncashed, unsigned examples are technically still negotiable instruments, a legal ambiguity that has occasionally complicated estate settlements.