5 Dollars The Bank of South Carolina

The Bank of South Carolina, chartered in 1802, was one of the state's most conservatively managed antebellum institutions — it survived the Panic of 1837 without suspending specie payments, a distinction very few Southern banks could claim. Notes from its mid-1850s issues reflect that reputation: the bank maintained tight circulation relative to its specie reserves, which means genuine over-issue examples are essentially unknown.

Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Edson produced this plate during their final decade before merger into the American Bank Note Company in 1858.