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25 Cents 'Postage Currency' - 1st issue
| Issuer | United States Treasury |
|---|---|
| Year | 1862 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | National Bank Note Company |
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| Obverse description | The face presents five reproductions of the 5-cent United States postage stamp, each bearing a vignette of Thomas Jefferson, arranged in a horizontal row across the centre of the note. Numeral counters appear at the upper left and upper right corners. The perforated edges simulate genuine postage stamps, reflecting the note's origins as a substitute for coinage. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse is dominated by a large dark guilloche rosette centrally placed, with the numeral 25 printed in bold within its field. Surrounding the rosette, curved and scrolled inscriptions state the note's legal tender conditions and the authorising act. The imprint initials ABC appear at the lower right, denoting the American Bank Note Company's involvement in printing. |
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| Comments |
The Postage Currency series of 1862 was a direct response to the almost total disappearance of coin from circulation in the opening year of the Civil War. Hoarding was immediate and severe — by mid-1862, even copper cents had vanished, and private merchants were issuing their own scrip to make change. Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase's solution was to legalize what the public was already doing: using postage stamps as currency. These notes simply printed the stamps directly onto the paper rather than requiring loose stamps to be passed hand to hand, a practice that had already become genuinely chaotic.
The National Bank Note Company perforated the edges of first-issue examples in imitation of actual stamp sheets. Later issues dropped the perforations entirely.