Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
25 Cents 'Fractional Currency' - 3rd series
| Issuer | United States Treasury |
|---|---|
| Year | 1863 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 100 × 47 mm |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Portrait vignette of William P. Fessenden, Secretary of the Treasury, positioned at centre facing right, rendered in fine intaglio engraving. The denomination TWENTY FIVE CENTS appears in letterpress type, flanked by formal typeset inscriptions referencing the authorising act of March 3, 1863 and the note's acceptability for United States postage stamps. The overall layout is characteristic of Third Issue Fractional Currency, with a plain border framing the text and portrait. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | This Note is Exchangeable for United States Notes by the Assistant Treasurers and designated Depositaries of the United States in sums not less than Three Dollars. Receivable in payment of all dues to the United States less than Five Dollars except Customs. 25 CENTS |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
Fractional currency was the Treasury's solution to a genuine crisis: by mid-1862, hoarding had stripped coins from everyday commerce so completely that merchants were issuing their own cardboard scrip and postage stamps were being glued to envelopes and used as change. Congress authorized fractional notes in July 1862, and the third series — printed from 1863 onward — was the first to drop the word "postage" from the face entirely, a deliberate move to distance the notes from the earlier postage currency stigma.
The National Currency Bureau ran three distinct varieties of this denomination in the third series, distinguished by the presence or absence of a surcharge on the back and by fiber content in the paper.