National banknote book by Kelly question on outstanding$
DontTellTheWife
Posts: 610 ✭✭✭
So in the kelly book i see amounts outstanding at the bottom of each banks listing.
Total outstanding, large outstanding.
Is the difference assumed to be small outstanding???
Thanks for your thoughts
0
Comments
Yes.The "out in 19XX" is the total outstanding,both large and small,at that date.Therefore,the difference is small size.
A big caveat to remember tho that the O/S stats are not necessarily accurate and need to be used carefully. Stats for banks that closed before WWI or thereabout are probably pretty close, but seem to be increasingly less so during the last 20 years of the NBN period.
The rationale is that large numbers of notes were withdrawn from circulation after the temporary issuance of emergency currency in late 1914, during the transition to small notes during/after 1929 and with the large number of bank closures early on in the Depression. Huntoon has dealt with this at least a couple of times and I think there may be an old thread or two here as well. It's pretty clear that the shear volume of notes involved probably overwhelmed the resources for redemption and (intentionally or not) not every note (and in fact many notes) was charged against the correct bank's account. There was an incentive for banks to do this since it could hasten the release of securities or lawful money. ban
There are cases where a bank with a small or even no outstanding is known to have surviving currency. In "my" area 12th Street National is a good example where O/S large at close in 1933 of just $615; when I started to collect the bank was thought to be quite rare but in actuality the bank can at best be considered scarce with 17 notes reported in the census (and many more not reported).
Also the O/S stats for surviving banks reflects a single point in time (1935) so won't reflect variations in redemptions based on a bank's size, location, etc. Being the only game in town, the stats can be suggestive/useful as a starting point, but really shouldn't be considered in any way definitive.
Just MHO...
And then there is the whole issue of "unreporteds", even deliberately so. I own some and after an experience with some discovery notes back in 2007 won't publicly disclose them.