National Currency
sharkyrex
Posts: 23 ✭
So, I just discovered Brown Seal National Currency notes, and would like to know of they are still Legal Tender?
Something Like This.
Buying all low end varieties of the $1 bill.
1
Comments
Yes,they are.However,good luck trying to spend it as very few people are aware that they are still spendable and may not accept them.Nor would you want to use it as it is worth more than face as a collectable.Some "Nationals" are very valuable in fact.
Thanks, I just wanted to know, I just feel that it's better if it's still legal tender.
Buying all low end varieties of the $1 bill.
Really nice paper quality
Most collectors would refer to your note as a Federal Reserve Bank note from the district of Chicago, IL. Although FRBNs used the national currency template they do not have charter numbers for the bank. Nationals aka national bank notes all had charter numbers although very early first charter period notes did not always have the bank charter number printed on the note.
Family, Neighborhood, Community,
make the World a better place.
Yes, that is really an FRBN. National Currency was issued in the name of a bank based on a quantity of secured bond debt with the US Treasury. Have X amount in the Treasury, you can issue Y amount of currency in your banks name. As banks failed and liquidity became a problem, the stock of National Currency notes got tossed out in large quantities to increase the money supply and hopefully the current velocity of monied transactions. Not sure how much it helped... but they tried it. Which is why there are little black boxes by the sigs designed to overwrite where it says Cashier and President (of the issuing bank).
Ah the Depression... good times...
FRBNs are an emergency issue printed and circulated in 1933 in response to the run on banks and bank holiday.
National Bank Note stock notes (fully printed except for the bank name, charter numbers and serial numbers) were already on hand at the BEP in sping of 1933, so rather than engrave new plates and print new design FRBNs, the BEP just used the existing stock, overprinting them with one of twelve Federal Reserve Bank names, district letter, serial numbers and signatures. This allowed the BEP to respond to the currency emergency in weeks instead of months.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Bank_Note
I’m fairly new to nationals but I really like them
I agree with numbersman. Years ago, I got some Sacagawea dollars as change while visiting a national park. Days later, I was paying for something in a retail store and the cashier looked surprised and had to ask a manager "Do we take these?" I said, "It is US Currency, of course you do." The manager agreed, of course.
Collecting small-size star notes.
Mishawaka, IN
I could be wrong (I often am), but I don't believe any currency ever officially produced by the US government since the 1860's for routine circulation purposes has ever been demonetized or declared worthless, though you can't turn in silver or gold certificates for the metals that used to back them, nor nationals for the bonds that used to back some of them. There are some special cases I'm not so sure about: fractional currency for one, encased postage, and very large denomination bills (>$1000), for others, though those were never supposed to freely circulate as legal tender in the first place.
Yes I do love those WI nationals!!!