50 Cents 'Fractional Currency' - 3rd series

The Third Issue Fractional Currency emerged from one of the stranger episodes in American monetary history: a wartime coin shortage so acute that the public was using postage stamps as small change. Congress formalized the practice briefly, then handed production to the newly established Bureau of Engraving and Printing — its earliest major contract, and one that shaped the BEP's institutional development for decades.

Two distinct 50-cent types account for the Pick split: one carries a perforated edge, the other does not. The perforation was abandoned mid-series after it proved both expensive and fragile in circulation. Surcharge varieties and fiber paper experiments complicate the picture further, making this one of the more technically involved series in U.S. small-denomination paper.