Catalog
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| Issuer | Bank of the State of South Carolina |
|---|---|
| Year | 1862 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 92 × 69 mm |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 1st March 1862 The Bank of the State of South Carolina Will pay bearer on demand Twenty Cents. _________________ For Cashr. |
| Reverse description | The reverse is plain, printed on unadorned paper with no design elements, lettering, or ornamentation, consistent with emergency fractional currency issues of the Civil War era. |
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| Comments |
The Bank of the State of South Carolina was one of the few state-chartered banks in the Confederacy that remained solvent and operational through most of the war, backed by state assets rather than speculative capital. By 1862, with coin entirely absent from circulation, fractional notes like this one became the only practical medium for small transactions — change-making had become a genuine logistical problem across the South.
Small-denomination issues from this bank were redeemable in Confederate Treasury notes rather than specie, a quiet acknowledgment that the silver standard was finished for the duration.