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4 Dollars 'Continental Currency' - United Colonies
| Issuer | Continental Congress |
|---|---|
| Year | 1775-1776 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Plain letterpress-printed reverse with a large central nature-print vignette — a leaf or botanical impression serving as an early anti-counterfeiting device — surrounded by the characteristic typographic border repeated on all four sides. The denomination is set in bold display type at the top, and the printer's imprint appears in italic script at the lower centre. |
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| Protection type | Nature print |
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| Comments |
Hall & Sellers printed the Continental Currency series using a nature-print technique developed — and enthusiastically promoted — by Benjamin Franklin decades earlier: actual leaves were pressed directly into the printing matrix, producing vein patterns impossible to replicate by hand engraving. The method was explicitly anti-counterfeiting technology, and Franklin considered it one of his more practical contributions to colonial commerce.
The "United Colonies" designation places this note before July 1776. Congress shifted the wording to "United States" following the Declaration of Independence, making that single phrase a reliable dating shortcut for the entire series.