Encyclopedia Dubuque
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Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
FRACTIONAL CURRENCY
FRACTIONAL CURRENCY. The CIVIL WAR was about to cross the Mason Dixon line and the political and economic future of the United States was unsure. The country's only mint in Philadelphia had been in production less than a hundred years and keeping silver and gold coins in the marketplace had been a problem since the mint's opening. As war threatened, hoarding coinage became a national obsession. (1)
Necessity quickly led a number of trial solutions by merchants, banks, and institutions, including promissory notes, metal tokens, and attempts to use regular postage stamps as change. But the public did not trust wooden nickels, promissory notes too easily broken, or tokens amounting to nothing more than gestures. (2)
In 1862, General F.E. Spinner, Treasurer of the United States, ordered some postage stamps and blank paper on which government securities were printed be sent to his office. He cut some of the paper to small uniform sizes and pasted a few of the stamps in an orderly fashion onto the cut pieces of treasury paper. (3)
Spinner's models were quickly adopted and in 1862 the first of five separate production issues that would stretch to 1876 entered the marketplace. The 5, 10, 25, and 50-cent denominations of the first issue bore the name "Postage Currency" across the top, but all issues thereafter were stamped, and became known as, "Fractional Currency." The small bills, measuring 2 ½ to 5 inches across, ranged in value from 3 to 50 cents. (4)
On April 21, 1876, the COMMERCIAL NATIONAL BANK received the first shipment of silver to replace the fractional currency. The demand had been so high in Chicago that orders for the coins had to be reduced by one-third. The Dubuque Herald reported that "probably within ten days the supply will be increased; meanwhile the disciples of rag baby currency will still be happy." (5)
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Source:
1. "American Fractional Currency--1862-1876," Online: http://www.fractionalcurrency.net/
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. "New Silver Coins," Dubuque Herald, April 22, 1876, p. 4. Online: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=uh8FjILnQOkC&dat=18760422&printsec=frontpage&hl=en