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20 Dollars Gold Certificate
| Issuer | United States Treasury |
|---|---|
| Year | 1906 |
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| Printer | Bureau of Engraving and Printing |
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| Obverse description | Central intaglio-engraved oval vignette of George Washington in three-quarter profile, captioned WASHINGTON below, set against an elaborate dark green guilloche background with ornate scroll-work columns at left and right bearing the numeral 20. A large orange-gold XX underprint occupies the left field, with a matching decorative rosette underprint at right bearing WASHINGTON D.C. in script; the serial number and SERIES OF 1906 appear in orange-gold ink, with two facsimile signatures below the portrait. |
|---|---|
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| Signature(s) | Lydia E. Parker and John Burke |
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| Comments |
Gold Certificates of this series were not general circulation notes in the usual sense — they were technically receipts for gold coin deposited with the Treasury, redeemable on demand. In practice, banks used them heavily for interbank settlements, which means surviving examples tend to show hard use. The 1906 series introduced a revised large-size format and updated Treasury signatures across multiple denominations as administrations turned over.
Parker served as Register of the Treasury and Burke as Treasurer — the signature pairing places this note in a specific window of the Taft administration. Gold Certificates were pulled from public circulation by executive order in 1933 and their private ownership made illegal; most were surrendered and destroyed. Survivors exist largely because of collectors who risked non-compliance, or notes that were overseas when the order took effect.