2 Dollars State Bank of Michigan

The State Bank of Michigan was a product of the state's 1837 free banking law, which allowed almost anyone to establish a bank provided they deposited approved securities as backing. The system produced hundreds of short-lived institutions and an ocean of depreciated paper — Michigan became one of the better-known examples of antebellum wildcat banking excess, though by 1859 tighter regulation had thinned the field considerably.

American Bank Note Company's Detroit operation handled this issue, a detail worth noting because ABNC's Detroit work from this period is less thoroughly documented than its New York output. The dimension scale security device was a deliberate countermeasure against photographic reproduction, then an emerging threat to currency integrity.