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 Replies: 9 / Views: 3,070 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1374 Posts |
I was reading another post about RADAR notes that somehow got side tracked into a short discussion about these WWII silver certificates.  Does anyone know why the pacific theater notes had the HAWAII overprints on the face and the back in addition to the seal color change? As far as I know, the European theater N. Africa notes just had the seal color change.  What was it about the pacific theater that required the over printing in addition to the seal color change? |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
992 Posts |
The North Africa printings were for military use, my take is that it was far easier to control the currency when it's entirely military usage, very limited return of notes to America, and the very limited economy of North Africa, than it would have been for Hawaii. In the event of a Japanese invasion, which was planned by the enemy following what they had gamed as their great victory at Midway, there would have been thousands of American civilian prisoners, evacuees, and a much larger economy, with a great deal of cash falling into Japanese hands or being repatriated to the west coast.
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Rest in Peace
10197 Posts |
Neither issue was meant for continental use, hence was area specific, similar to wartime pay script. In event it fell into enemy hands, couldn't be used in States.
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Moderator
 United States
56855 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
742 Posts |
If I had to hazard a guess I would say that the reason for no additional overprint on the NA notes had to do with efficiency in the printing process. Overprinting the Hawaii notes required an additional pass through a press for each side on the note. The NA notes were produced without any additional steps.
I have a copy of a report written by the BEP after the war that covers their wartime experience. The amount of items they produced during the war was staggering. War bond production alone was upwards of two million pieces per day. The remaining stock of 1929 series Federal Reserve Bank Notes were impressed into service during the war to lessen the need for currency production. Anything they could do to make the job more efficient was done.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
94367 Posts |
Another curiosity of these wartime issues is that all the NA notes and the $1 Hawaii note are Silver Certificates, but the $5, $10 and $20 Hawaii issues are Federal Reserve Notes!
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
94367 Posts |
Another possible explanation might be that there were still many "brown seal" FRBNs and National Bank Notes in circulation at that time (including 5 NBs in the Islands), so that a general invalidation of all easily-recognizable brown seal notes would have been an overstep - thus the overprint.
Edited by Coinfrog
09/21/2017 6:25 pm
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Bedrock of the Community
 United States
12813 Posts |
 I have always wondered the same thing, though I've always just left it that the HAWAII overprint makes it one of my favorite notes. You know, like this one:  |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
94367 Posts |
Beautiful note! There must have been a lot of the Hawaii's and NA's left after the war - they were seen frequently in the '50s when I was a kid.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4637 Posts |
CK and Frog, some really nice Emergency issue notes !!
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Replies: 9 / Views: 3,070 |
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Posted 09/20/2017 9:10 pm
