Stack’s Bowers sell rare $1,000 bills
Two notes reached nearly $1 million each March 22 at the Stack’s Bowers Galleries auction of the Joel. R. Anderson Collection Part I in Baltimore. The first of two notes…
Two notes reached nearly $1 million each March 22 at the Stack’s Bowers Galleries auction of the Joel. R. Anderson Collection Part I in Baltimore.
The first of two notes that tied at $960,000 was an 1863 $1,000 Legal Tender Note. The Friedberg 186d example was graded About New 58 by PCGS Currency.
According to the cataloger, “just four examples of the 1862 and 1863-dated $1,000 Legal Tender Notes are known to collectors, with only two in private hands, this being the finest graded.”
The note is further described as “amply margined with just a single hardly noticeable corner fold at bottom left keeping it from a full Uncirculated grade. The distinctive face design features the portrait of founding father and Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris at center.”
Also at the top is the only privately held Fr.187b 1880 $1,000 Legal Tender Note. PCGS Currency graded it Choice About New 55.
This note features a portrait of DeWitt Clinton, the governor of New York State, who pushed construction of the Erie Canal.
According to the cataloger, “This 1880 $1,000 Legal Tender Note with a large brown spiked Treasury Seal no doubt looks distinctive to even some of the most advanced United States currency specialists. The design and seal type combination was only used for two varieties: those with signatures of Bruce-Wyman (as seen here) and those with signatures of Rosecrans-Nebeker, for which no examples are known. Just two examples of Fr. 187b (W-4513) are known with one (serial number Z6498) residing in the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution where it is likely to remain. That leaves this lone note (serial number Z1164), as the only example of this design type and seal combination available to the collecting public.”
A total of seven lots in the sale sold for over $500,000.
Total prices realized was $7,912,140.
Visit www.stacksbowers.com for more information.
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More Collecting Resources
• The Standard Catalog of United States Paper Money is the only annual guide that provides complete coverage of U.S. currency with today’s market prices.
• When it comes to specialized world paper money issues, nothing can top the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money, Specialized Issues.
