The E-Sylum:  Volume 7, Number 45, November 7, 2004, Article 5

EARLY CHARLESTON CURRENCY PLATES FOUND

  On November 2, 2004, the Charleston, NC Post and
  Courier published an article about some newly-discovered
  printing plates for early Charleston-area paper currency:

  "Charleston was running low on silver money toward the
  end of the War of 1812, so the city ordered $20,000 of
  currency printed in bills worth from 6-1/4 to 50 cents,
  bearing images of farm animals.

  This fall, 190 years after the steel plates used to print the
  bills were created, they turned up in an old safe in City Hall.
  The discovery by Charleston city employees who were
  preparing the building for a major renovation has caused a
  buzz at museums from Columbia to Washington.

  "I can't wait to see them," said Richard Doty, numismatics
  curator at the Smithsonian. "It's quite a find."

  With the printing plates was a treasure trove of financial
  artifacts from some of Charleston's darkest days.

  Another set of richly engraved plates used to make Charleston's
  city-issued currency during the Civil War was found. It bore
  images of City Hall, the Old Citadel and a slave picking cotton."

  "Nancy Phelps, director of Charleston's Record Management
  Division, has been researching the plates. She found a copy of
  the ordinance dated Oct. 3, 1814, ordering the printing of the
  oldest of the notes "to remedy the evil arising from the present
  want of change."

  To read the full article, see: Full Story

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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