Catalog
50 Cents
| Issuer | Maryland State Colonization Society |
|---|---|
| Year | 1837 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Two oval vignettes, each enclosing a duck resting on water amid reeds, are positioned at the upper left and upper right of the note. The central area carries the denomination numeral "50" within a small circular frame, with the redemption text in script lettering below. The denomination "FIFTY" appears in vertical letterpress along both lateral borders, with the numeral "50" repeated in the lower corners, and a light decorative underprint frames the entire composition. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | MARYLAND STATE COLONIZATION SOCIETY. Baltimore, Nov. 1837. 50 This will be received for FIFTY CENTS at the Government Store, in Harper, Maryland in Liberia, Africa, in payment for goods. Governor of Md. in Liberia. Pres't Md. State Col. Society. |
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| Comments |
The Maryland State Colonization Society was a private organization, not a government body, yet it issued paper currency — an arrangement that was legally murky but practically tolerated in the 1830s, when small-denomination specie was chronically scarce in American commerce. The Society's core mission was the resettlement of free Black Americans and emancipated slaves to the colony of Maryland in Liberia, and these notes were part of its fundraising and operational infrastructure.
That a colonization society functioned as a quasi-bank, issuing fractional currency redeemable presumably at its Baltimore offices, tells you something about how loosely the boundaries between civic organization and financial institution were drawn in antebellum America. Surviving examples of this S114 issue are genuinely rare — the Society was never a major financial institution, and low-denomination notes of this kind were used hard and discarded.