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50 Cents Bank of Augusta

Issuer Bank of Augusta
Year 1863
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In circulation to 1865
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Obverse description Plain white ground with a simple typeset letterpress layout and no pictorial vignette. Denomination numerals appear in the upper left in black and upper right in red overprint, with a Gothic letter 'B' at top centre serving as a series indicator. The issuer name 'BANK OF AUGUSTA' is set in large display type across the centre, above the promise-to-pay text rendered in italic script; the denomination words 'FIFTY CENTS' are printed in red. A manuscript signature appears above the dotted cashier line at lower right, with the place and date 'Augusta, Ga., Jan. 1, 1863' at lower left.
Obverse lettering 50 B 50 The President, Directors & Co. of the BANK OF AUGUSTA Will pay FIFTY CENTS to Bearer on demand, in Confederate Treasury Notes, when the sum of Five Dollars is presented. Augusta, Ga., Jan. 1, 1863. .....................for Cashier.
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Comments

The Bank of Augusta was one of Georgia's oldest chartered banks, but by 1863 it was operating under severe strain — Confederate requisitions on specie reserves had gutted the state banking system, and fractional notes like this one emerged to fill the void left by the near-total disappearance of small silver coins from circulation. The Confederacy's inability to control subsidiary currency meant that dozens of Georgia banks issued their own fractional paper independently, with no central redemption guarantee.

Augusta was a major Confederate manufacturing hub, which kept its banks nominally functional longer than many Southern counterparts. Redemption after 1865 was, of course, worthless.

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