$20 American Bank Note Company Specimen Bill

Very interesting. Thank you for that =)

"Advertising pieces".... interesting... advertising for other countries?

The sole purpose of the 1929 FRBN however was indeed to replace Gold Certificates. The banking holiday mentioned (actually a moratorium on banks selling, transferring, or paying out gold by any means) effectively stopped a run on banks nationwide by citizens who were worried about the economy and the possibility of bank failure...... If a person wanted to withdraw all of their banking assets, gold was the tender of choice..... Roosevelt had this scheme and all its detail worked out prior to his inauguration, and in March 1933, both the banking moratorium and the series 1929 FRBNs came on the scene.... These notes replaced the gold certificates and many of the FRNs (which at the time enjoyed a 40% gold cover)....The banking moratorium was just a guise for the real intent of the new Roosevelt administration.... The plan was to eliminate National Banks, grow the government's role in banking, inflate the dollar by pumping more currency (without being backed by gold) into the economy, and to accept a huge mandated influx in gold from banks and private citizens into the Treasury simultaneously..... It worked.... The government bought gold for just over $20/oz, and within a year raised the price of gold to $35/oz..... nearly a 70% increase in the Treasury's net worth.

1929 FRBNs were printed in March 1933, and are the only form of actual "emergency" money printed by the Federal government. Many of these notes were not issued until 1942-43.

The 1918 FRBNs were intended to replace the National Bank Notes, but fluctuations in silver prices caused them to be used to replace Silver Certificates instead, which were removed from circulation in partial reaction to the Pitman Act.... I realize that this has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the OP's topic, so I'll leave it at that.... Maybe someday we can get into a discussion of The Federal Reserve Act for one thing.

I knew that they printed for other countries, but I did not know that they had to be competitive in that way.... only makes sense though I guess.... Thanks for that.

I have never been interested in any notes that said "SPECIMEN" on them, so I never paid any attention to them, but at the same time, I like learning new things lettow, and I sincerely appreciate the lesson here.... This is a whole new chapter in note collecting that I was previously oblivious to.... Thanks again....


(I also have even less appreciation for specimen notes now..)

Very interesting note.

Yes, any note can be graded. Even in CU, there are different grades. The higher the number, the more valuable it is.