Fr 1935 Bicentennial Deuce Note

For those old enough to remember it, our country’s Bicentennial celebration was a “big deal,” and legislators wanted to make it a perfect gala. Their collective wisdom spawned a national medal, three commemorative coins, and the Fr. 1935 B$2FDC Bicentennial Deuce Note. As a centerpiece of the celebration this “New Two” Federal Reserve Note sported a spiffy engraving of the “Presentation of the Declaration of Independence” on its back. The principal author of that document, Thomas Jefferson, emblazoned its face.

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Background
Jefferson’s starring role traces to a painting by Gilbert Stuart, engraved by Charles Kennedy Burt in June 1867 for use on a post Civil War Series 1869 $2 Treasury Note. This same engraving had also been used on the small size $2 Legal Tender Note, which had been abandoned a decade earlier in 1966. The flip side shone with John Trumbull’s famous painting, as engraved by Charles Schlecht a century earlier in January, 1875, for First Charter $100 nationals. Because U.S. currency had been shrunk in the interim, Schlecht’s saddle blanket image needed to be cropped for the smaller deuce by lopping off six of the delegates, who had the historical misfortune of being positioned too far left and too far right for the space available.

To make matters even sweeter for Bicentennial celebrants, the feds permitted postmarking of the notes on their first day of issue, April 13, 1976. All one had to do was buy a 13-cent stamp (get it 13 colonies, 13 cents) which just happened to be first class postage a generation ago (yes, it was that low!) and affix it to the note, and hand it to a Post Office clerk, who would cancel it and hand it back to you. The Independence Hall stamp, such as on the note shown was the most popular stamp for this purpose because that was the place where 56 delegates had signed the document and mutually pledged to one another “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” However, other stamps were deployed for this purpose, too.

History
Unless you were alive at that time you may never have seen one of these notes. The Bicentennial Deuce illustrates the boom-bust mentality of our Washington bureaucrats. The $2 note observance was recommended by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing management in 1969 to achieve cost savings through lessened $1 note production. That sounds contemporary, doesn’t it. Dollar bill production eats up a huge chunk of BEP resources, and for 40 years now the feds have been trying to figure out how to lessen this burden: witness the succession of ill-fated dollar coins served up to an unreceptive marketplace during that time. Budget-conscious folks at the Treasury Department estimated savings at $7-$9 million annually through use of a $2 bill even though the denomination had been tried before and found wanting. This time around, they counted on patriotic fervor ginned up by the Bicentennial celebration to move the note through the marketplace. Their mantra in favor of a new deuce was picked up by the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration. ARBA set up a numismatic advisory panel in February 1970, which unanimously urged a gleaming Bicentennial reverse for the note to replace Jefferson’s Monticello on the previously failed bill. ARBA administrator John Warner announced support on Sept. 30, 1970.

Additional consideration of the proposal fell to study groups and task forces both inside and outside the government. Collectors chimed in their approval. All parties, seemingly, jumped on the bandwagon. In the space age bravado of the times, “all systems were go.” A California Congressman Jerry Pettis brought the initiative to Congress. H.R. 819, “A bill to direct the Secretary of the Treasury to issue $2 bills bearing a design emblematic of the Bicentennial of the American Revolution on the reverse side,” was introduced in the House of Representatives on Jan. 14, 1975. Then in May 1975, an impressive Harvard Business School task force also threw its weight behind the deuce. On August 21, 1975, BEP Director Jim Conlon told a Society of Paper Money Collectors meeting in Los Angeles “chances were good for a Bicentennial deuce note.” The present author knows. He attended that meeting.

On Nov. 3, 1975, Treasury Secretary Bill Simon made it official. The feds would issue a Series 1976 $2 Federal Reserve Note for America’s big birthday bash. Government hype machines roared into action. The note’s release was spirited by great fanfare and ballyhoo by flaks at the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve System.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing received an order to crank out an initial printing of 450 million “New Twos” ($900,000,000). Half were ordered for the Deuce-Day release date, April 13, 1976. This date was selected because it was Jefferson’s birthday. Long lines of collectors – and just plain average Janes and Joes – queued up at postal counters on the designated Tuesday to commemorate release of the Neff-Simon first U.S. $2 Federal Reserve Note.

In July three months later on the 200th anniversary of the Declaration itself, additional thousands once again marched off to select postal counters thrust open on Sunday by special arrangement with the Post Office Department to once again affix stamps and have their $2 notes canceled on that auspicious date, too.

In between BEP presses cranked out PR sheets telling people that “New Two” $2 notes were not bad luck, a wives' tale that had plagued earlier deuces. After all, the publicity flaks reasoned, our Founding Fathers had issued $2 notes during the Revolutionary era. The PR machine circulated other blurb sheets telling its citizens this new denomination wouldn't inconvenience them or cashiers. These notes didn’t even look like twenties and there really were enough drawers in the cash registers, they assured the citizenry.

Publicity also appealed to patriotism, telling Americans to use the new bills and save the public coffers. Despite collector approval, the man on the street gave a collective “ho-hum” and went about his business without the ballyhooed bill in purse or pocket. A stillborn Bicentennial “New Two” languished in a non-circulating limbo: a true case of America’s Lazy Deuce.

The Bicentennial note developed something of a Wednesday’s Child persona – full of woe. A high treasury official told this writer at the time “The $2 note is not dead, it’s just lazy.” A year after the note’s trumpeted debut, the government considered spending a massive $300 million for additional publicity to rehabilitate its star-crossed image. Blessedly plans for this spending spree were abandoned before the ill-conceived, expensive measure was approved.

Instead, feds tried to twist arms of retailers into supporting the notes’ use: The BEP bestowed honors on compliant merchants; Federal Reserve banks mobilized currency users in their areas; some supermarkets agreed to push the bills over their counters. These attempts were like successive waves on a sandy beach. Notes that got dumped into the marketplace were quickly redeposited in commercial banks. When no further demand called them forth again, piles of these unwanted notes sat collecting dust. So within a year the BEP stopped cranking out the new bills for the simple reason that the Federal Reserve quit ordering them. BEP “New Two” presses were stilled in March 1977. Treasury estimated that 109 million deuces had been foisted off on the public; 155 million notes remained in inventory. The BEP had wasted 82 face plates, and 80 back plates ginning out the notes, small size currency expert Chuck O'Donnell told this reporter.

Treasury once again harried grocers to adopt the orphaned bill. The feds faulted retailers for not routinely ordering the denomination. Several chains capitulated. An Indiana bank had some success discounting the notes to the public for a $1.95 each. A massive PR campaign over the Thanksgiving holiday in 1977 pleaded with the public to step up to the plate and circulate the Bicentennial deuce. They pointed to our northern neighbor’s success with its $2 bill. “Canada,” a Treasury special projects spokesman said, “has had total success with its $2 note issue.” By April 1978 on the note’s second anniversary a Treasury spokesman cried “Uncle.” “We’ve done everything in our power to promote the two, but we don't’ have any way to force people to take the bills,”  she lamented dejectedly. A year later Treasury told Congress the note was a “dead issue.”

Collecting
These notes are still kicking around, of course, and periodically the BEP tries to repackage the deuce as a sales gimmick to fleece collectors. Although history has written a somber epitaph for a noble bureaucratic blunder, collectors can fortunately still add this historic reminder to their collections inexpensively. Except for Star (replacement) Notes, crisp bills with or without postmarks are very cheap. Among stars the issues from the smaller midwest districts of Minneapolis and Kansas City are the most valuable, cataloging for about $200 bucks each.