5 Dollars

Hoyer & Ludwig were lithographers by trade, not security printers — a distinction that matters here. The Confederate Treasury turned to them out of necessity in 1861, when no Southern firm had the equipment or expertise to produce intaglio currency. The result was notes easily counterfeited almost from the day of issue, a problem Richmond acknowledged but never adequately solved.

This note predates the Confederate government's attempt to standardize its paper money output. Multiple printing firms working simultaneously from different designs produced a chaotic first-year series, and Pick 18 is one of the earlier entries in that proliferation — before Richmond imposed tighter controls on authorized note types in late 1861.