Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
500 Dollars
| Issuer | Confederate States of America |
|---|---|
| Year | 1864 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Keatinge & Ball |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse is entirely blank, printed on plain paper with no design, vignette, or lettering, consistent with Confederate Treasury issues of this series. |
| Reverse lettering | Vierge |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
By the time Keatinge & Ball produced this note in 1864, the Confederate Treasury was in freefall. Richmond had lost access to most of its earlier suppliers, including the Northern bank note firms it had quietly relied on before the war, and the Columbia printing house was working under severe materials constraints — ink shortages, degraded paper stocks, and increasingly irregular watermark quality are all documented in surviving examples from this period.
The $500 denomination was effectively notional. Inflation had so thoroughly eroded Confederate purchasing power by early 1864 that this face value represented far less than its prewar equivalent, and public confidence in further emissions had collapsed. The April 1864 currency reform, which forcibly exchanged old notes at a discount, preceded this issue — making it one of the last significant denomination runs before the currency became worthless entirely.
Keatinge & Ball relocated operations to Augusta, Georgia, before Columbia fell to Sherman in February 1865.