20 Dollars Federal Reserve Note, Brown Seal - Hawaii

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.