Is the J Whatman 1862 also a British watermark?
My understanding is that all of the watermarked paper came from Britain, except the script CSA marked paper. Forget where that came from.
Is the J Whatman 1862 also a British watermark?
I tend to agree that withholding cotton from European markets was a huge mistake. Had cotton been rushed to Europe before the blockade became effective it would have really helped put the Confederacy's finances on a much firmer footing. Which in turn would have helped with the manpower shortage because a soldier's pay would have been worth more. He wouldn't have had the need to desert and would have stayed put.In 1860, as in 2019, almost all daily commerce was done through credit, not legal tender. People exchanged bank notes and checks. Coin was used to pay import tariffs and excise taxes, as they had been since the Federal government was formed. Coin was the only legal tender; the U.S. government did not accept bank notes or checks in payment, as it had when the Second Bank of the United States was the central bank. But coin was not generally needed in the private domestic economy; clearing of checks and bank notes was done through local clearing houses. When the European Banking Panic of 1857 hit, there was no repetition in the United States of the state bank failures that had torn through the country after 1837 and created the first Great Depression in American history. What had changed was the Federal government's finances. The financial pain from 1857 had been felt in the place that directly depended most directly on the import trade - New York. Tariff collections fell dramatically, and Federal government went from a surplus of $1,170,000 for the year ending June 30, 1857 to a deficit of $27,530,000 for FY 1858. Revenue declined from $68,965,000 to $46,655,000. By 1859 the U.S. economy had resumed growing; but the Federal government's tax collections had not. In 1861, thanks, in part, to the loss of customs revenue from the Southern ports, the Treasury collected only $41,510,000. That was only the beginning. In the first full fiscal year of the war - July 1, 1861 to June 30, 1862, the Treasury would spend $474,762,000; tax receipts would be $51,987,000. Federal debt would increase from $90,582,000 to $524,178,000.
Congress attempted to fund this exponential increase in IOUs by issuing Greenbacks and making them legal tender. It was an outright disaster. People continued to accept the notes of local banks, which they knew and which were backed by deposit insurance. They had no similar confidence in the promises of what had been a distant minor bureaucracy known principally for its obnoxious whiskey taxes.
The solution was to use Congress' only unlimited authority under Article I, Section 8 - its power to tax - to create a market for Treasury debt. Banks under state charters would have all issues of bank notes taxed at 10%; banks chartered under the National Banking Acts were free to issue notes without tax. Their only obligation was to hold U.S. Treasury debt as security for their bank note issues. It was a wonderfully clever fix to what had seemed an impossible problem. The Treasury would sell bonds to the National Banks who would then issue bank notes to their borrowers who were farmers, manufacturers, railroads, freight companies and others who held Federal purchase orders for the supplies and services needed for the war.
By FY 1866 Treasury debt had grown to $2,755,764, yet the Federal budget had returned to surplus for the first time since 1857. Tax collections from the income tax and the boom in imports had grown to $558,033,000. British and Dutch banks and their American correspondents had realized that the rewards from helping their customers sell steam boilers to the Federals were well worth the risk, especially when there was an active Gold Room in New York where bank notes and Greenbacks could be traded against gold bullion. Hamilton's dream had finally come true; the U.S. Federal debt had grown large enough to become the assets that people bought with their savings and banks and insurance companies owned as reserves.
Could the Confederacy have pulled off a similar miraculous transformation of its finances? Possibly. But it would have had to begin by seeing that its only chance was to use cotton to buy European credit and recognition. Had the Confederate States of America embarked on emergency wartime production of cotton for export from day one, it would have achieved a boom in revenues that would have equalled the North's explosion in borrowing. If, in turn, the Confederacy had allowed the Banks of England, France and the Netherlands to retain the money owed in payment (rather than shipping the gold coin across the Atlantic), the financial systems of those European countries would have been irrevocably tied to the independence of the new Confederate nation. There would have been no possibility of a Union blockade and the Federal Navy's capture of New Orleans - the single most important financial event for the South - would not have occurred.
Now that's the kind of history you can hold in your hand.He drew this bill in Tupelo, Mississippi and later gifted it to one of his daughters, Lida May Mason, in 1901. He survived the war and died in 1917. Occupation listed on his death certificate: Preacher and Farmer.
Here is a slightly crisper picture of the bill.
View attachment 342310
1. You assume the South could have grown and sent abroad sufficient cotton to back your plan before the blockade became effective. How much cotton do you think could have been produced and shipped out of the country, more than was actually shipped, before the blockade's effective date (say April, 1862)? Would this have been enough to "have achieved a boom in revenues that would have qualled the North's explosion in borrowing?"Could the Confederacy have pulled off a similar miraculous transformation of its finances? Possibly. But it would have had to begin by seeing that its only chance was to use cotton to buy European credit and recognition. Had the Confederate States of America embarked on emergency wartime production of cotton for export from day one, it would have achieved a boom in revenues that would have equalled the North's explosion in borrowing.
If, in turn, the Confederacy had allowed the Banks of England, France and the Netherlands to retain the money owed in payment (rather than shipping the gold coin across the Atlantic), the financial systems of those European countries would have been irrevocably tied to the independence of the new Confederate nation. There would have been no possibility of a Union blockade and the Federal Navy's capture of New Orleans - the single most important financial event for the South - would not have occurred.
I stand corrected, the $500.00 bill with Stonewall Jackson is not the rarest or the Holy Grail but I'd still like to get my hands on one. The real collectible seems to be the $5.00 with the "Indian Princess" and Negros loading cotton on the front. Only 7,160 of these "Indian Princess"notes were issued. It was considered very rare almost 30 years ago.In my 2014 copy of Confederate States Paper Money is listed at $150 (good) to $800 (uncirculated). In the notes I find that it is not rare but its popularity with collectors has caused it to rise in price. I would expect it to have risen even higher since 2014.
To give some perspective, some issues have values ranging from a few dollars to 45,000 (the highest one in my book).
The $10.00 bill with field artillery and R.M.T.Hunter gracing the front is said to be the most commonly available. There were over 9,000,000 of these notes printed.
Wookey Hole sounds either Scottish or Irish. Similar to Blarney Stone, maybe for origins.
Lubliner.
I stand corrected, the $500.00 bill with Stonewall Jackson is not the rarest or the Holy Grail but I'd still like to get my hands on one. The real collectible seems to be the $5.00 with the "Indian Princess" and Negros loading cotton on the front. Only 7,160 of these "Indian Princess"notes were issued. It was considered very rare almost 30 years ago.
Makes you wonder what happened the rest of them. 7,160 of the Liberty Shield were supposedly issued.According to my checklist, and not counting the first 4 "Montgomery" notes, the 2 rarest are the Indian Princess and the $10 Liberty Shield/Eagle notes... only 138 known copies of the Princess and 113 known copies of the Liberty...
... makes for a real dilemma for those of us "list-checking-completion-freaks"... a full set of Confederate notes now costs in the 6 figures!