Question regarding Civil War era coins for historical documentary
Brianruns10
Posts: 227 ✭✭
Hey all,
I've been a long time member, but haven't posted in a while, as I drifted out of active collecting as shifted focus to my work as a historian and documentary filmmaker. But I've got a new project that has allowed me to dive back into the world of coinage, and I have a couple of things I'd love to run by you for your expert opinions.
I'm a producer on a series about interesting, lesser told stories of the Civil War. One episode deals with a raid that took place in St. Albans, Vermont in 1864, in which Confederate raiders from Canada robbed three banks in the town. I'm doing props for the banks, such as reproduction Greenbacks, 730 notes, coins, etc. And here is where I could use your knowledge.
My first question is: do any of you know if, in 1860s, coins were being distributed in rolls yet, or were they still coming in canvas bags from the Mint?
Second: considering the shortages of gold and silver, I'm wondering if any of you can say what types of silver and gold coins would've been most common? I gather that silver dollars were fairly rare during this time, so would smaller denominations like half dime, dimes and quarter dollars. What about gold? Small denoms like dollars, quarter eagles and half eagles, as opposed to larger ones like eagles and double eagles?
Third: by 1864 were large cents circulating still, or had they been supplanted by the small cent due to the value of their copper content?
Many thanks for any information you can provide, and thanks for always being there, from when I was a kid just starting off, to now!
Brian Rose
Comments
(#1)
Rolls didn't begin public use until the late 00's and only became very popular in the late 1930's. Canvas bags would probably be your best bet, although to be honest I have not seen any from the ACW period (oldest I have seen was from the 1870's). Coin barrels might have been used in some banks, hopefully another member can elaborate on that.
(#2)
Half dollars would have most likely been the most popular silver coins back then. Half dollars dated 1851-1859 are incredibly common and saw heavy circulation.
$20 eagles and other large denominations began in the early 1850's and saw circulation during the ACW era as well. Smaller denominations such as the Trime, gold dollar, half dimes, and queagle circulated among the public, though bankers preferred larger denominations. 2 cent pieces and hard times tokens were popular in the Union.
(#3)
Considering the amount of heavily worn large cents dating from the mid to late 1850's, it is safe to assume that they would have circulated heavily up until the late 1800's (Though by 1890 they had likely been phased out of the US money supply). It's unlikely that banks would have them in large amounts, and I imagine that robbers would want larger denominations.
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Thanks! This is terrific information. I'm lucky in that these robberies were well documented, so I know how much money to mock up. IN the case of the cents, you are right, and in fact there is a story about a robber going for a sack of coins, opening them, and seeing cent coins spill out, which he then passes on. Which was bad luck for him, because the next sack contained gold coins.
If you look at the shipwreck treasure from the SSCA (1857) a number of the double eagles were shipped in wooden boxes and the coins were in rolls within those boxes
I remember seeing the P Mint ship 1 bag containing 5 smaller bags of Half Dimes to the S.F. mint in 1862
Face value $500
The silver dollar bags from the
Mint had 1,000 coins in each of them
Gold coin $5,000 face value
each bag
$20,
$10
$5
$2 1/2
$3 gold $3,000 face per bag
Gold dollars 1,000 per bag
Double Eagles we’re the top dog
I would imagine out of the silver coins
the Seated half dollars would be the most common US coin encountered
Are records available about how much of what was stolen was specie? A few stacks of featureless $20 would like be good as prominent background. Are you looking for accuracy or drama with accurate underpinnings? There are many side stories on coins then circulating that could be injected into the story at 2 degrees of separation. Fractional currency might not be in any of the three banks but could be a both a humorous sidebar and a good visual. Three-cent anythings are good for a cheap and easy digressive "aha". Good luck, sounds like a fun project.
Luckily I have a lot of information on these robberies, as the banks filed claims afterwards. So I know how many greenbacks and treasury notes were taken. Specie is a little less clear. The robbers were on horseback so they didn't take much coinage because of the weight, but made off with around $400 in silver. But the denominations weren't specified.
I'd offer that whatever coins and currency shown would be typical, but not historically verifiable. The bag of gold coins passed by? What were their precise contents. Will you be as satisfied with a short stack of $10s as a short stack of $20s as historically justifiable assumed exemplars of what was in a teller's drawer or on the president's desk?
Cents may have still been shipped in small kegs. I don't know when that stopped. In isolated Vermont they wouldn't have had a lot of coins.
There was a glut of US silver coin in Canada during this time period
Interesting project, and I applaud your efforts at accuracy. So many films do not make such efforts, and they become irritating to many people. Cheers, RickO
I don't think that the $20's recovered from the S.S. Central America had been in rolls. The coins were tightly stacked inside the wooden boxes in such a way that the coins could not move from side to side or up and down. This prevented abrasion on a long sea voyage. When found, the wood had rotted away but the coins were still in neat stacks that look like rolls.
I would be surprised if there were any large cents around by then, unless some person spent one at a store and the storekeeper deposited it just to get rid of it. Suggest you skip the notion.
The Raid was in October of 1864 so the Two Cent pieces were out by then. You might have a non-raid character ask for, or offer to a customer, "some of them new-fangled Two Cent Pieces!"
Fractional currency was probably more common than silver halves, quarters, dimes and half dimes. You could have somebody count out an odd cent amount (cashing a check maybe?) using a combination of fractional currency and minor coins. "Eighty-eight cents! Here's a fifty cent bill, a twenty five center, a ten center, one of them new-fangled two cent pieces and an eagle penny!"
Yes I know it is a cent.
I also doubt there was any gold around. All the bank could do would be to give you the face value in paper. A bullion house would pay you over face value in paper.
Good luck.
TD
Bags of half dollars would have been the most common inter-bank transfers. Why? You do the math...
Two 1864 Half dollars would be 24.8 grams of 900 fine silver.
A single 1864 silver dollar would be 26.73 grams of 900 fine silver.
Adding: The coinage act of 1853 reduced the weight of the half dime through half dollar, but didn't change the dollar.
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
The Colonel raises the important point that all of the rest of you are missing, although it's interesting to watch the speculation about coins that were never stolen.
The majority of the money stolen were local banknotes, mostly issues of the three banks. Franklin County Bank, St. Albans Bank, and the Lamoille Bank, if my memory is correct. It may not be. If I had the time, I'd dig up the info for you. There are a number of books on the subject and I believe accurate figures for notes taken from each bank exist. At least one of the banks recalled the notes and issued new ones and those recalled can be found with some ease and could have been notes actually stolen but I don't think that there's a definitive way to determine this.
You might try posting this question on Paper Money Forum as there are a few people there that are Confederate experts and have a particular interest in this little-known event. I'm pretty sure that this was the only Confederate attack on New England, although "attack" isn't as accurate as "raid".
The vast majority of money in circulation in the United States from about 1815 to date has been paper money, not coins. Coins (Specie) was the backbone of the system for much of the 19th century but currency allowed relatively little specie to be used to create lots more money (leverage). So paper money, sometimes bank issued, sometimes Treasury Notes (used extensively during the 1810s, 1830s, 1840s, 1850s and 1860s), did most of the heavy lifting.
I remember reading that northern merchants would show three prices depending on how you paid---one for gold, one for silver, and one for paper notes. Their relative values would change depending on how the war was going. At one point, $100 in gold was worth $286 in US paper money. Early in the war, the CSA dollar bill was worth slightly more than the US dollar bill due to the CSA winning a few early battles. This didn't last long due to the North's fortunes improving during the war and the massive printing of CSA currency to pay for the war and the subsequent inflation.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Based on a couple of books I've read like "A Nation of Counterfeiters". as a matter of risk, a possibly bad note on a good bank was often preferable to a good note from an unknown bank.
Also, per the OPs's noting a bag of gold undiscovered and left behind, simulacra of pricey circ No Motto $5's and $10's and Type I $20's, will likely be needed for background.
This is hopefully a useful footnote to @sellitstore's post above.
Yes, but this was for the U.S. Legal Tender notes which were not backed by specie. They were heavily discounted and rates changed daily. However, notes on good banks in your city traded at par, and notes on good banks in other cities, only at slight discounts, representing a small profit for those banks redeeming them at par. U.S. Govt. Legal Tenders were discounted much more during the War and private notes on banks disappeared in 1866 with a 10% tax instituted to make them go away. Uncle Sam was going to maintain a monopoly on currency issue from that point on.
Absolutely. Name meant a lot. And notes on the Canal or Citizens Bank of New Orleans were good as gold up and down the entire length of the Mississippi as well as the interior. New York and North Eastern notes, in general, got a lot of respect since the banking laws and enforcement tended to be better in those regions than in other parts of the nation. Those New Orleans banks were the exception in the South and Midwest, reputable and well run.
Here's a few St. Albans notes that could have been among those stolen in the Raid. That's why they exist today. The bank couldn't determine which were stolen and which good, so didn't redeem them. I also included a scan of an interesting St. Albans Masonic note that is the only example that I've ever seen. Almost certainly R7 (1-5 known).
The Colonel is right. Many banks issued their own notes in the mid to late 19th Century. If the bank failed, its notes were worthless.
In another matter, silver dollars were in $1,000 amounts, stored in canvas bags. I remember reading about the number of 1859 O and 1860 O Seated dollar bags that were found at one of the mints in the early 1960s.
"Seu cabra da peste,
"Sou Mangueira......."
I remember when those 1859-O and 1860-O dollars were released, along with the 1903-O and 1904-O and a few other rare N.O. Mint dates. The '03-O was as highly regarded as the '93-S until that release.
Wasn't it a bag of 59-Os and four bags of the 60-O? They were pretty bagmarked from being moved multiple times over 100 years.
When Abe Lincoln left Springfield, he took $100 in coin and $300 in notes of a New York bank.
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
If memory serves me correctly, there were 3 bags of 59 Os and five or six of 60 Os, and they were very baggy. These are now the type coins of the Seated Dollar Without Motto variety. I was able to get a 59 O that wasn't from these bags, as it is not baggy at all.
"Seu cabra da peste,
"Sou Mangueira......."