20 Dollars Gold Certificate, Gold Seal left

Gold Certificates of the 1928 series were redeemable in gold coin on demand — a promise that became legally meaningless in April 1933 when Executive Order 6102 required private citizens to surrender gold and gold-redeemable instruments to Federal Reserve Banks. Holding one afterward was technically a federal offense until President Ford's executive order restored private gold ownership in 1974. Most were turned in and destroyed, which accounts for the relative scarcity of circulated survivors today.

The Woods-Mellon signature combination places this note squarely in Mellon's tenure as Treasury Secretary under three presidents. A.W. Mellon left office in February 1932, so notes bearing his signature predate the very crisis that rendered them void.