ANOTHER ALTERED NORTH AFRICA NOTE

After I wrote the article about the ten-dollar North Africa note that was altered to look somewhat like a ten-dollar New York Federal Reserve Bank Note, I went looking for an article about Hawaii and North Africa notes that I vaguely remembered written in a banknote periodical. It took a while to find it, but I'm glad I looked for it because it added another facet to the subject of altered North Africa notes.

The article was written by Pete Huntoon, noted banknote researcher with collaboration of several others including Jim Downey who also writes for the Gram. It appeared in Paper Money the journal Society of Paper Money Collectors (SPMC), May/June 2008 issue and was titled U.S. Hawaii & North Africa/Sicily Military Currency. In twenty-one pages, the subject is extensively covered and tells you what you never knew about these two series of notes.

One that I totally forgot about was a second altered North Africa note that will make you think, why did anyone go thru all the changes to convert to a Federal Reverse Bank Note when a change to a Silver Certificate only required changing the yellow seal to blue. We don't know if it was the same group did both alterations and the alteration to the Silver Certificate was the second version when they were informed that Silver Certificates were valid currency. If it wasn't the same group, then whoever recognized that there was a $10 Silver Certificate in circulation, had an easier task of only changing the seal color and thus produced a more deceptive note.

Now the only way to tell if you have an altered note is to check the serial number of the blue seal note and see if it falls in the range of the yellow seal notes. Below is a chart of the $10 yellow seal serial numbers extracted from the SPMC article.

 

When the article was written only three examples were known. Are there more? Probably, but you have to check the serial numbers. I have never seen one except for the picture shown here. Check the three serial numbers against the above chart. They all fit the first line of the chart.

 

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
AN ALTERED NORTH AFRICA NOTE (https://www.coinbooks.org/v25/esylum_v25n39a28.html)

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