Paper money issued by the Confederate States of America has a reputation for its primitive and crude workmanship. While this stigma is well-deserved in most cases, the earliest notes issued by the CSA were of high quality, exquisitely detailed, and the aesthetic equal of the bills employed by the North.
The explanation for this phenomenon is simple. The first currency used by the Confederacy were printed early in 1861 by the National Bank Note Company--an outfit in New York City which was renowned for the excellence of its products. The company was so proud of its efforts that it unabashedly placed its name on the front of each bill in the lower right corner. After that ugly Fort Sumpter incident of April 12, 1861, the rebel government, under the correct belief that the US authorities would frown upon a continuing business relationship between the company and an entity at war with the United States, sent an agent to New York to retrieve the printing plates for the money. It was too late--federal agents had already seized them.
No problemo--the National Bank Note Company was not the only fish in the sea, The rebels also employed the services of the American Bank Note Company--also in New York City. However, the American Bank Note Company was a little more circumspect about its treason, and the Confederate currency it produced was labeled "Southern Bank Note Company."
Eventually, the Southerners had to resort to other sources to print their money, yielding the mediocre bills more normally associated with the Confederacy.
And the two opportunistic Yankee bank note companies? They thrived and produced both money and postage stamps for the United States government and other countries, as well as other elaborately engraved documents such as stock certificates, bonds, and traveler's checks. In fact, the American Bank Note Company eventually swallowed up the National Bank Note Company and is still with us today.
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| National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History [Public domain or CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons |
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