It was fun to read the original topic, "How to tell a 1963 Kennedy US Note?" (
http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/...PIC_ID=19868) which is now locked.
The fun part was how conspiracy and collecting couldn't figure out what each other was saying. Fun but nobody got an explanation. Since this forum is liable to get another request like that, I'll throw my 2¢ in.
The theory is that JFK caused the 1963 series of United States Notes through Executive Order 11110 in order to take back US currency from the Federal Reserve ...and got assassinated for his trouble. For that reason, there was never another series of United States Notes. The theorists thought that the collectors knew that.
The collectors knew that there there had been United States Notes since the Civil War; that all Silver Certificates were United States Notes; and that there had never been a $1 Federal Reserve Note UNTIL 1963; $2 Federal Reserve Notes didn't happen for the first time until 1976. They assumed the theorists knew that, too.
The theorists didn't know that since 1878, Congress required the treasury to have exactly $346,681,016 in United States Notes in circulation. That law stood until the 1990's.
The theorists thought that United States Notes were backed by silver when, in fact, they were the original fiat currency. That scared Congress into passing the $346,681,016 in gold limit, a lot of money in 1878, but eventually dwindled to being a drop in the bucket.
The only small-size United States Notes backed by silver were ...Silver Certificates.
The theorists also didn't know that ALL $1 bills, in the current small size, were Silver Certificates and some rare United States Notes until 1963. There were NO $1 Federal Reserve Notes until 1963.
In series 1963, United States Notes were printed in $2 and $5 denominations to replace Silver Certificates which were being withdrawn because of the spike in silver prices. That was the end of the road for United States Notes. The series 1966 began to convert them all into $100s and kept them in a vault (a few got out into circulation) until Congress repealed the $346,681,016 rule; they were then destroyed.
So if anyone else comes knockin' for a "1963 Kennedy" you can offer them their choice of either:
a $2 or a $5 United States Note
or:
the first $1 Federal Reserve Note ever printed.
The purpose of all three (and Executive Order 11110) was not to return the US to a silver backed system ...but rather to get the US completely off backing the paper currency with ANY kind of metal ...and keep the silver for making coins.
Posted 05/27/2009 03:33 am
