SANTA CLAUS ON U.S. CURRENCY

Money can be so boring. Or, at least, U.S. paper currency. Green, black, cream, some president’s head. With the holiday season upon us, there are holiday stamps, holiday checks, holiday-themed toilet paper. Would it be so horrible to have holiday-themed currency?

They didn’t think so before the U.S. Treasury stepped in to un-democratize the design of U.S. currency. Before it did that in 1861, there actually was holiday-themed currency featuring Santa Claus, and earlier versions of St. Nicholas.

“From 1793 to 1861, when the U.S. Treasury was given exclusive rights to produce legal tender, thousands of different styles of bank notes were created by U.S. banks,” and prominent on some of their holiday-themed currency, a blog post from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York tells us, was Santa Claus.

Santa was extremely popular back then, the post says, thanks to a.) Christmas becoming an official holiday in many Northern states, and b.) the printing in 1823 of the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” by Clement Clarke Moore (that was the original title; today, it's known as "The Night Before Christmas"). Here's another image of a Santa bank note from that era from, yes, Saint Nicholas Bank in New York:

To read the complete article, see:
When Santa Claus Showed Up on U.S. Currency (www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-19/when-santa-claus-showed-up-on-u-s-currency.html)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web