THE EARLIEST SURVIVING CONFEDERATE NOTE

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V27 2024 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 27, Number 42, October 20, 2024, Article 8

Steve Feller submitted this note about a great banknote in his collection, inspired by last week's article about Confederate rarities in an upcoming Stack's Bowers sale. Thank you! -Editor

The following is from an article I wrote for Paper Money regarding the earliest known Confederate note. The article was A Great Note Finally Obtained: The Earliest Surviving Confederate Note (Paper Money LV (6) (Whole Number 306) 443-447 (2016)). The note is in my collection. It too is a Type 3 $100 CSA note from a stack's Bowers auction.

T-3. Confederate Currency. 1861 $100. PCGS Fine 12 Apparent. Repaired Splits, Upper Left Corner Replaced.

No. 6, Plate A. This is the lowest recorded serial number of any T-3 according to the census in "Collecting Confederate Paper Money" by Pierre Fricke. It is also the third lowest serial number of all recorded Montgomerys. This example was issued from New Orleans on April 20th, 1861 by N.J. Delaplaine. The note was later redeemed at the Custom House in New Orleans where the sum of $100.55, being principal and interest, was paid to the holder as seen by the large stamp on the back. A large stamp cancellation is seen on the face reading "CANCELLED BY F.H. HATCHER, COLLECTOR N. ORLEANS." The green tint remains strong on this note despite the level of circulation and repairs mentioned by the grading service. Bold blue stamped serial number 6s are seen at left and right making this a noteworthy yet affordable key note for the Confederate type set.

From the Old Virginia Collection.

Certainly, this is a fair description but it is by no means complete. Let us delve deeper. An invaluable resource to any collector of Confederate States notes is the small book Register of the Confederate Debt by Raphael P. Thian first published in 1880 under a longer title but reprinted with the shorter title by Quarterman Press in 1972. In it the author lists every serial combination with signers that were known to the author from the so-called Rebel Archives held in Washington, D.C. Included in this are the serials signed for the Montgomerys as well as the dates that these notes were signed. Below is a scan of the relevant section of Thian's book:

We see that the very first signing of Confederate notes took place on April 5, 1861-the same date that is on my note. On that date just nineteen T-3s and five T-4s were signed. This was a modest start for the new nation and summed to just $2150 in face value. By the end of the war the total would be on the order of billions of dollars issued. It is easy to confirm that my newly obtained note squarely falls in the beginning part of that very first day's signed lot of notes.

Furthermore, according to Pierre Fricke's census published in his recent book on Confederate Notes, Collecting Confederate Paper Money: Field Edition 2014 only three notes from the first day of signing have survived. These are serials 6, 12, and 16 of T-3. No T-4 notes are known to have survived from the first day of signing. Thus, my note illustrated above is the lowest surviving serial note from the first day the Confederacy signed and issued its currency notes!

As a postscript the Montgomery notes given in the E-Sylum piece by Stacks' Bowers were signed as follows: April 25, 1861 for the serial 54 Type 2 $500 and May 4, 1861 for the serial 682 Type 3 $100 note as maybe seen in the page from Thian's book or from the notes themselves (not visible in the article). Thus, the two Montgomery notes shown by Stacks' Bowers were signed just 9 days apart which may explain why they were together in the first place.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
CONFEDERATE BANKNOTE RARITIES (https://www.coinbooks.org/v27/esylum_v27n41a29.html)