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20 Dollars Federal Reserve Note, Brown Seal - Hawaii
| Issuer | Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco |
|---|---|
| Year | 1934 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 20 Dollars (20 USD) |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Central vignette of an intaglio portrait of President Andrew Jackson set within an oval frame, flanked by the denomination numeral '20' at left and right; black 'HAWAII' overprints appear at the lower left and lower right corners. The face carries the district designation 'Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, California' within a green seal at left, with 'Series of 1934A' printed below the portrait. Legal tender text and the promise to pay twenty dollars on demand are inscribed across the lower portion of the note. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Green intaglio print on a white ground with a fine guilloche underprint; a central vignette of the White House is framed by ornate lathe-work borders. A bold black 'HAWAII' overprint runs vertically across the full width of the reverse, applied as a wartime emergency security measure. The denomination 'TWENTY DOLLARS' appears in the lower central panel. |
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| Comments |
Issued under Executive Order 9hundredhm — actually under the authority granted following the attack on Pearl Harbor — these notes were part of a deliberate contingency strategy. If the Hawaiian Islands fell to Japanese forces, the Treasury could declare all Hawaii-overprinted currency void, preventing enemy seizure of a usable dollar reserve. The brown seal and bold HAWAII overprints on both faces were the mechanism for that isolation policy, not a wartime decoration.
The underlying 1934A series plates were already in use; the overprinting was applied at the BEP before shipment. All denominations from $1 to $100 received the treatment, and civilians in Hawaii were required to surrender their regular Federal Reserve notes in exchange — possession of non-overprinted currency on the islands became a criminal offense.