All right, I have finally acquired the final note I needed for my type set's collection of Series 1902 National Bank Notes, which means I now have both a red seal and a blue seal example in $5, $10 and $20 denominations.
The
good news is that the note has very good overall eye appeal and I got it for a lot less than I was expecting. The
bad news, however, is that the very top of the note is cropped (whether at the mint or later I cannot say):
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In case anybody is interested in the history of these notes, the Act of April 12, 1902 allowed existing National Banks to receive a 20 year extension under the original National Banking Act of 1863, and also called for a new series of note designs to be issued. Over the next 28 years, there were 3 distinct types of Series 1902 bank notes issued: 1902 Red Seal, 1902 Date Back and 1902 Plain Back (which had the same design as the Date Back, except that the dates were no longer shown on the back). Plain Backs are the most common type and were issued from 1915 through 1929. Note that until August 23, 1925, the obverse included two separate serial numbers: a bank serial number in the lower left corner and a Treasury serial number in the upper right corner. After August 23, 1925, the Treasury serial number was removed and replaced with a duplicate of the bank serial number.
[Technically, my type set is incomplete because I do not have any of the blue seal "Date Back" versions, but I can live with that. For now...]
And, just in case anybody is interested, here is the complete set from my collection:
Posted 01/04/2026 05:50 am
