BOOK REVIEW: INTEREST PAID ON CONFEDERATE TREASURY NOTES

Interest Paid on Type 39, 40, and 41 Confederate Treasury Notes, with an Appendix on the Type 41 Tint Plate, by Roger Adamek, 74 pages, published by CC&A, 2024.

Roger Adamek has compiled a new catalog of the varieties of methods used to denote the interest paid on Confederate treasury notes. This new soft-cover book in an 8.5 by 11 format, is listed in eBay's Confederate note section for $21.95 with free shipping. It is the culmination of an intense effort spanning two decades. In this book you will find images of all known varieties of Interest-Paid stamps and manuscripts on Type 39, 40, and 41 notes.

Treasury notes financed the war effort for the Confederacy. The first treasury notes were printed from high quality steel plate engravings by New York firms. President Lincoln shut down this production in early 1861 and C. G. Memminger, the Secretary of the Treasury for the Confederacy, was forced to turn to Richmond printers. On May 5th, 1862 the Treasury Note Division in Richmond began issuing large quantities of $100 notes designed and initially printed by the Richmond firm of Hoyer & Ludwig; 498,400 of these notes were issued up to January 16th, 1863, most of them printed by J. T. Paterson in Columbia, South Carolina. Hoyer & Ludwig's design included a train vignette borrowed from northern engravers. The notes were printed as lithographs and are today known as Type 39 and Type 40 train notes. The Columbia, South Carolina firm of Keatinge & Ball produced a design from high quality engraved steel plates featuring slaves hoeing cotton. Known as Type 41 hoer notes, production commenced on August 26th, 1862, with a total of 670,400 notes issued by January 8th, 1863.

To make these notes attractive for commerce they bore interest at 2 cents per day, or an astounding 7.3% per year. The notes were hand-dated on the front, and interest was initially paid from that date. The Treasury Department later sought to limit its liability for interest by requiring those who issued the notes for commerce to record the date of issue on the back, and interest then accrued from that later date. Interest was typically paid up to the 1st of January for any year, and nearly all of the Interest Paid stamps reflect that date. Manuscript indications of interest-paid were used when stamps were not available, and their variety is fascinating; some show places where interest was paid, some show who paid the interest, and some show the arithmetic to calculate the interest.

These interest-bearing notes were issued by Treasury Department depositaries, military quartermasters, military commissaries, military paymasters, and other government agents. Interest was paid by Treasury Department depositaries, port collectors, and their deputies, who often had offices in local banks. Some depositaries resided at literal ports like Wilmington, North Carolina, but a great many also resided at what were considered ports of commerce like Augusta, Georgia. The depositaries kept detailed registers of the interest paid on these treasury notes (illustrated on the back cover of the book). Hand-written entries are found with serial numbers, plate position letters, the dates of issue, the number of days of interest, and the interest paid on each note. This was an immense job when we consider that 1,168,800 notes were issued.

The new book contains an extensive appendix with new information on the colorful tint plate used as an anti-counterfeiting device on the Type 41 note. Adamek has delved into the history of this device and its many varieties. This research helps to explain the large variety of its observed positions and colors. Collectors, auction houses, and grading services might want to re-examine the use of the term oxidized to explain the darker colors we often see in this device. While oxidation or some environmental chemical reaction is surely seen in some circumstances, research suggests that it is not the cause of most of the variation we see, which was very likely a part of the production process. Adamek draws on the work of George Tremmel to suggest a more likely cause.

This book explores some of the wonderful variety we see in the effort of the Confederate Treasury Department to supply a monetary base. A large part of this variety is simply due to the reality that the Confederacy had to create a centralized government and its institutions from scratch. Department heads like Treasury Secretary C. G. Memminger had to resort to outsourcing much of the work to the private sector, and this is why we see such a rich variety of designs and such a wide variation in the artistic quality and workmanship. To make matters worse, the private sector of the Confederacy was ill-equipped to provide the paper, inks, and the skills needed to design, engrave, and print millions of notes. The firm of Keatinge & Ball relied on the skills of Scottish lithographers and guaranteed their passage to and from the Confederacy by payment in gold. A great deal of the paper and inks were imported from England on blockade runners. Keatinge & Ball provided the highest-quality lithographs to the Confederacy in very large quantities, but as we can see in the varieties of the HUNDRED device, even this firm struggled to provide consistent quality in its elegant, intaglio-printed Type 41 design.

The Type 41 tint plate HUNDRED device, an intaglio underprint in orange-red ink.

The same issues hampered the creation of a system which could disburse the treasury notes - the depositories had no precedent in the Confederacy and had to be created from scratch. It is no wonder that we see such a rich variety of methods to denote the payment of accrued interest on the $100 interest-bearing notes issued in 1862 and early 1863. The depositaries quickly adopted stamps to record interest paid on treasury notes, but the proliferation of manuscript notations of interest paid is a reflection of the infancy of the centralized Confederate government and the need to get the job done if a formal stamp was not available. The Treasury Department paid interest at 7.3% on these notes, and while this is an astonishing return, it is also easy to calculate the interest, which accrued at exactly two cents per day. The calculations of interest on the backs of some treasury notes show the practical utility of this rate of interest.

Adamek's book presents a window into the efforts of a newly-established government attempting to meet the monetary needs of its society. It was a heroic effort, but it was predicated on the preservation of slavery as the engine of its economy, and this was memorialized in the central vignette of the Type 41 treasury note. It was a society based on extreme wealth inequality, and in the end, it didn't survive.

A very rare Interest Paid stamp from Fayetteville, NC.

A Type 41 tint plate device with color variations which are
not attributable to oxidation. The new book explains why.

For more information, or to order, see:
Interest Paid Reference Guide for Type 39,40, and 41 Confederate Treasury Notes

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