Talk:United States Note

Notes

Are you saying there were no legal notes in the US prior to the Civil War? -- Zoe

According to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing:

...the Treasury Department did not issue notes intended for circulation as currency until 1862. This being the case, these notes are not obligations of the United States Government.

Prior to this time there were Colonial Notes, Continental Currency, and State Bank Notes. Oh yeah, there were also notes printed by two U. S. banks established by Congress, the First Bank of the United States (1791-1811) and the Second Bank of the United States (1816-1836). To the best of my understanding there is a fine distinction here - I believe the latter were United States Bank obligations as opposed to obligations of the United States Government. At any rate, it was the National Bank Act of 1863 that created a national currency and ultimately led to the extinction of state bank notes through some pretty hefty taxation which made such state notes unprofitable to issue. -- Elano

The table in this article

I never thought of it before, but the table at this article is about modern Federal Reserve notes. United States Notes, which were printed prior to 1914, had portraits of different kinds. What should we do with the table?? 66.32.251.152 23:38, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

POV

I removed some sections that were obviously biased against the Fed, but I think this article still needs a review by someone with more knowledge in this area. --Phirazo 06:33, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

The article was not biased against the Fed. It was merely information about United States Notes and its ideological support by American Statesmen. There was nothing about the Federal Reserve in the article! It seems to me above poster is intentionally trying to seek out anti-Fed bias and reaching for something that doesn't exist. I am going to undo the edit as it looks very uncalled for.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.206.160.18 (talk) 19:09, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

In the section "The Legal Tender Acts", the following statement is made: "...the printing of fiat currency is a heady wine...". This kind of description smacks of an anti-fiat currency bias and verges on ad hominem. -- Anonymous, 16:03, 8 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.65.67.71 (talk)

I have addressed this concern and attributed the quote directly to its author. LondonYoung (talk) 22:46, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

$300,000,000 is incorrect

Though the figure of $300,000,000 is often cited as the total amount of greenbacks allowed by statute. This is incorrect. The correct figure is $346,681,016. I have added the citation to the 1906 New York Times article that gives this as the figure of as of the resumption of specie payments. The treasury website themselves gives the round figure of $300,000,000 but note well they are speaking in round figures. Plain and simple the government source is wrong this time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wlmg (talk • contribs) 22:21, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually it is a bit more subtle than this. The law was that the Treasury was authorized to issue up to $300,000,000 but was also required to reissue any notes it received. Since the outstanding total was $346,681,016 the treasury could not issue new notes (since they were already over the limit) nor contract down to the limit (since there was no authority to retire any notes).--LondonYoung (talk) 19:17, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

While I haven't yet found a good on-line source to back this up, the $100 USN's were printed in 1968 and 1971 _specifically_ to keep the amount "in circulation" at the legally required levels, and most of them were "circulated" by moving them from bank vault to bank vault. Does this seem like a reasonable addition (if I can find backup), or would that be "fluff"?Almostfm (talk) 08:16, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

You are correct. Once they rolled out the Federal Reserve Notes, they mainly used $5's to meet the USN circulation requirement. Five's were the very last issue of large size USN's, and relying on the five continued when the small size was adopted. But they got tired of printing USN fives after they wore out and just decided to finesse that ole' circulation requirement by packing a bunch of 100's into the basement of the NY Fed. Fluff? I dunno, up to you. Online you may find this useful, http://www.uspapermoney.info/general/chron_s.html , but The Comprehensive Catalog of U.S. Paper Money by Hessler and Chambliss is pretty complete ... LondonYoung (talk) 13:08, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Unsourced claims

Is anyone actively working on this page? The page is almost entirely unsourced. Kbs666 (talk) 19:49, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I am willing to begin the process of fixing this page. It will take me a while, but there should certainly be an article on this topic. LondonYoung (talk) 10:37, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

There should definitely be a topic but there is a lot of stuff, first three paragraphs of the history section for instance, that has no place in an encyclopedia unless some sources can be found. Kbs666 (talk) 20:59, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree on the need for sourcing there, and I also think these comments hint too broadly on the fiat currency debate rather than issues specific to United States Notes. I'll get to it.LondonYoung (talk) 22:16, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I started work on this. I am not a fan on references in the intro; will add them as I attack the body. LondonYoung (talk) 01:56, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

There is a quote in here from economist S.G. Fisher which has been part of this article before. There doesn't seem to be any wikipedia entry for this economist nor any reference to his quote. I think it should be deleted if a reference can't be found.--LondonYoung (talk) 14:23, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Have failed to find anything about an S.G. Fisher after trying, so out the quote goes for now--LondonYoung (talk) 09:35, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

FED note superceeds US note

Hi. I've just made this edit. The statement I removed is false in that there are differences between US notes and FED notes. E.g. FED notes incur interest, whereas a US note does not as it's backed my silver or gold. Correct? --Fenvoe (talk) 16:09, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I think this is a VERY technical point, but I don't disagree with you. But note - the statement you removed was a direct quote from the Treasury itself! (See Ref. 13 of the current article.) What the Treasury should have said was that they felt no further need for those few monetary functions not served by FRN's that could be served by USN's. To issue FRN's, the Fed must purchase assets (in a tradition established by the National Banking System), but the Treasury can just print and spend USN's as it pleases (subject to congressional limitations). Since the UST is issuing bonds galore right now, and the Fed is buying up those and a host of junk assets as part of the bailout, it doesn't look like we'll face a need for USN's again in our lifetimes. --LondonYoung (talk) 21:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Constitution

The claim that "The Constitution did not grant the federal government the power to issue a paper currency" has no source, and is known to be false misleading, in that Federal Government does have the power to issue a paper currency, as found by the courts, even if there is no explicit grant of that power in the Constitution. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:01, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Yea, this is old damage from an anonymous IP, so I changed it back to the way I originally had it. LondonYoung (talk) 23:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

A lot of POV junk

A personal (or at least unreferenced) term "national-debt-free-money" has been inserted by a single issue IP who appears to be using WP to complain about the national debt. I've reverted it. IP, if you want to discuss this, do it here. Major changes to an article, not to mention pushing a new political view, needs to be discussed with other article authors.

(It appears from this editors' talk page that he has a lot of these sorts of problems on other articles, and does not really understand WP, or is unwilling to use WP's style.) SBHarris 19:23, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Seigniorage

This was added without a cite in July 2011:

“

Seigniorage in respect of United States Notes took the form of the value received by the Treasury from the acceptor of the United States Notes.

”

I am not a subject matter expert, but this doesn't seem to fit either the classic definition of seignorage (the spread between face value and meltdown value) or a modern definition (the spread between the face value of the currency and the offsetting interest-bearing bill, note, or bond). The classic definition applies to coins and the modern definition applies to Federal Reserve Notes.

In the case of a United States Note there is no offsetting metal value or interest-bearing security. The original printing cost was probabaly less that one cent per note printed. I checked the web site Bureau of Engraving and Printing which doesn't carry a stated printing cost for these notes for accounting purposes.

I will remove it is unless cited or restated. patsw (talk) 00:57, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

I went looking for where the text "in exchange for value received from the acceptor" might have been taken from (search) and saw that this Wikipedia edit with the ink still wet was quoted as authoritative here on Huffington Post.

The whole point of fiat currency is that there's no intrinsic value in it to "the acceptor" (which is a odd name in any case). patsw (talk) 00:41, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

It is certainly bizarrely worded and, I am guessing, just designed to fit in with some blog post. But it is also incorrect. Not all of the value received by the Treasury for these notes is seignorage since the notes do have some value due to their (sometimes limited) legal tender status.--LondonYoung (talk) 22:14, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Small-size $10 and $20 notes?

They were mainly issued in $2 and $5 denominations in the Series years of 1928, 1953, and 1963. There was a limited issue of $1 notes in the Series of 1928, and an issue of $100 notes in the Series year of 1966, mainly to satisfy legacy legal requirements of maintaining the mandated quantity in circulation.
I've read somewhere that a pair of $10 and $20 United States Notes, series 1928, were printed and displayed at the 1933 World's Fair. They were never issued into circulation. Is this true? I'm not sure why they were created -- maybe there was talk of formally issuing these denominations? --76.115.67.114 (talk) 22:56, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Such notes were printed. In currency jargon these are called "Essay" notes. An Essay is a printed design for a note which never goes on to be actually issued. Currency designers printed lots and lots of essay notes so that treasury officials could see what the notes would look like if they actually decided to issue them. The book "US Essay, Proof and Specimen Notes" illustrate the essays you are talking about here. --LondonYoung (talk) 17:32, 20 December 2011 (UTC)