Fr 93 10 Dollar Legal Tender Note

U.S. currency is known ’round the world as “Greenbacks,” and it was notes such as the Fr. 93 $10 Legal Tender Note shown which helped create this legacy.

Background
Paper currency is NOT inherently green, but when the Union government turned to the printing press to finance its attempt to coerce the Southern Confederacy back into the Union, the feds inherited some of the weaknesses of state bank note currency system which flourished in the ante-bellum period. One of the principal problems state bankers faced was counterfeiting of their notes.

Various remedies were attempted, including steel plates, fine line engraving, color overprints, but staying one jump ahead of the bogus money men was about as far as the legit bankers could venture before the fakers would once again improve their facsimiles and catch up. The private bank note companies which printed the currency for the state bankers sought improved technology to offer their clients. But when photography became widespread in the late 1850s, the situation looked dire. Perfect photographic counterfeits promised an ill-gotten way to wealth for the illicit traders and financial ruin for their legit bretheren.

Photographic technology and materials were making great strides, as chemists and laymen experimented with improvised materials and practices. Simultaneously, experimentation with proprietary inks ensued to make the coneymen’s job more difficult. A Canadian, Dr. Sterry Hunt invented a “Patent Green Tint” to combat photo duplication. Hunt licensed his discovery to Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Edson, a bank note company located in New York City and elsewhere. To assure its clients of this improved anti-photographic technology, the firm printed “Patented 30 June 1857” on its notes.

When RWHE joined with other firms to form American Bank Note Co. in 1858, this technological innovation passed to the new firm. Many of ABNCO’s notes also bore this legend. Such notes were more expensive to the bankers, but many wanted the added protection this Canada Green Tint provided.

After South Carolina and other states in the deep South seceeded, seized federal property and fired on Fort Sumter, President Lincoln and Congress mobilized northern assets to subdue the rebels. Suppression was expensive and the Washington regime was ill-prepared. Men and materiél were necessary and funds were lacking.

Congress turned to the printing press to supply these wants, as it had during prior times of financial stress during the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and Mexican War. Demand Notes and then Legal Tender Notes were approved. Having no paper money presses of its own, Northern officials -- like the state bankers before them -- turned to private bank note engraving and printing firms for assistance. Treasury wanted the best engraved, most secure product available.

The principal firms in the financial center of New York City, American and National Bank Note Companies were glad for the new business. Lincoln’s Treasury wanted the added protection the Canada Green ink afforded for its new notes. Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase agreed to pay $5/thousand impressions extra for the anti-counterfeit green ink. Notes bore the familiar pre-war “Patented 30 June 1857” hallmark. Since most of this ink was applied to note backs, the man on the street took to calling these bills “greenbacks” to differentiate the notes from other currency in circulation. The nickname stuck.

After security, designs for these new notes were the next crucial ingredient in floating a large paper currency issue in the marketplace. Patriotism was a must to marshall all sectors of the northern economy to the cause. The Union President, Abraham Lincoln, was a natural choice to appear on the new currency. Although George Washington had distained personal portraiture early in the Republic, the emergency facing the country trumped modesty, Old Abe was just the model for the $10 note.

Before his election, the "rail splitter" from the west was not well known throughout most of the loyal states. Despite campaign tokens and woodcuts in newspapers, Lincoln’s appearance on the federal notes beginning in summer 1861 was his first widescale media exposure. Carried on one’s person and passed hand to hand, his remarkable visage became a constant reminder of the wartime crisis facing the Union.

History
The photo on which Lincoln’s image on the $10 Legal Tender Note is based was taken by lensman C.S. German in Lincoln’s hometown of Springfield, IL on Jan. 13, 1861. Prior to his election Abe had been cleanshaven, and this portrait of the president-elect was one of the first to capture his nascent beard. According to lore, these chin wiskers had first been suggested to Lincoln by a young girl.

Copies of this photograph circulated. Needing an appropriate image of Lincoln for the federal notes, New York engraver Louis Delnoce produced a pen and ink drawing based on the German photograph. A colleague Charles Burt engraved the image on steel for American Bank Note Co., as ABNCo die no. 141. Recently this original steel die and accompanying paperwork appeared in an Atlanta auction held by American Numismatic Rarities (now part of Stack’s New York), where the material fetched a fancy price and went to the collection of a collector renowned for his study of Abraham Lincoln.

ABNCo. Lincoln portrait die no. 141 was cropped slightly, surrounded by an oval and scrollwork, to create die no. 141A for use on the $10 Legal Tender Note in 1862, like the Fr. 93 shown.

In addition to Lincoln, a federal Eagle and Shield and allegorical representation of “Art” appear on the tenspot’s face. The very green back of Fr. 93 bears the so-called First Obligation which reads:   “This note is a legal tender for all debts, public and private, except duties on imports and interest on the public debt, and is receivable in payment of all loans made to the United States.”  Notes were payable at the Treasury of the United States at New York.

Collecting
Three varieties of this note are now listed in the most recent catalogs. Fr. 93 has the Treasury Seal more or less centered at the right side of the note over “Art.” This variety also has a “starburst” (smallwheel-like image) in the center of border of Xs at the bottom of the note face. On Fr. 93a, the red Treasury Seal appears in the upper right corner on face. No “starburst” is engraved in the border. On Fr. 93b, also without “starburst”, the Treasury Seal again is centered at right. All notes bear the facsimile signatures of Register of the Treasury Lucius Chittenden, and Treasurer of the U.S. Francis E. Spinner.

Six million, three hundred thousand of these notes were printed. The $10 1862 Fr. 93 was printed in 63 series. A single serial number appears at upper right. Fr. 93a is the rarest and most highly valued of the three varieties, followed by Fr. 93b and then Fr. 93. Catalog values range from $650 for a Very Good example of Fr. 93 to five figures for Extremely Fine or better examples of the scarcer two varieties.

Unc. examples of the Fr. 93 exist, and have brought in the $7,000-$9,000 range at auction, so catalog prices appear realistic. An evenly circulated, problem-fee note with eye appeal is a bargain for under a thousand dollars.