Sam Upham, Union Counterfeiter of Confederate Notes

In his shop Upham also sold stationary which included patriotic envelopes.Interestingly the envelopes gave his address as 310 Chestnut Street. The bottoms of his "souvenier"notes was listed as 403 Chestnut, Philadelphia.
Also Upham claimed to have stopped printing money on August 1, 1863. There is speculation that he sold his plates to a man named Storey or some other printers. And they continued printing the facsimile notes without Upham's name at the bottom.
 
I still think the actions of one man did not ruin the economy of the South.
Neither does anybody else. It was him & the unknowable number of other souvenir producers coupled with the smugglers who made use of them that disrupted CSA currency values. For that we have the word of CSA officials. People who had to earn actual CSA money were being undersold & out bid by smugglers toting bales of fake bills. Because of that, transactions had to be in scarce gold or US currency. It was not so much the counterfeit bills as it was the way the smugglers used them,
 
The thing that gets me is....you have to pay good money today for worthless Confederate money....BUT!!!...you pay even more money for counterfeit Confederate money that was printed/circulated during the war. That's right, the counterfeits are worth more than the real stuff. So, one would logically conclude...errrrrrr, ummmmmmm....the more worthlless the money was back in history, the more valuable it is today. I don't understand the logic, but go ask any of the "paper pushers" at the shows and they'll tell you that the counterfeits are worth more....crazy!!!!!

No so crazy. You have to remember that this is a COLLECTOR'S MARKET. Collectors place value of things because of scarcity, historical interest, beauty, eye appeal and other variables.

What gives things value? It usually has something to do with you need to it to live, and beyond that, it gives you pleasure. Most people, who are not collectors, can't understand how collectors' minds work.
 
No so crazy. You have to remember that this is a COLLECTOR'S MARKET. Collectors place value of things because of scarcity, historical interest, beauty, eye appeal and other variables.

What gives things value? It usually has something to do with you need to it to live, and beyond that, it gives you pleasure. Most people, who are not collectors, can't understand how collectors' minds work.
Ya, I know...I know... :thumbsup: ...but it just seems so crazy! :eek: :O o:
 
What gives money value? It's the fact that you can exchange it for goods and services. You also have the courts which support the concept that you have satisfied a debt with the payment of legal tender.

There is a market for gold, silver and other precious metals, and there is the value of the current legal tender notes and bank balances which represent them. It's just that simple.
 
The real thing was made by the Southern Banknote Company of New Orleans, which printed some of the highest quality Confederate notes. The trouble was they didn't have enough capacity to satisfy the Confederate Government's needs.
The trouble was that they were in New Orleans.

New Orleans was occupied by Union forces early in the war. Understandably, this put a damper on their business. They were shut down.
 
.... As local businessman John Spence here in Murfreesboro TN stated, a lot of the money carried by CSA soldiers in October 1862 looked like it was nothing more than a photo cut out of a newspaper. At least Upham’s fakes were printed on nice banknote stock.
False. Upham notes are on inferior paper matching the description of the first part of the above quote. Many lower grade notes are falling apart, not limp but intact as banknote paper would be.
 
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The thing that gets me is....you have to pay good money today for worthless Confederate money....BUT!!!...you pay even more money for counterfeit Confederate money that was printed/circulated during the war. That's right, the counterfeits are worth more than the real stuff. So, one would logically conclude...errrrrrr, ummmmmmm....the more worthlless the money was back in history, the more valuable it is today. I don't understand the logic, but go ask any of the "paper pushers" at the shows and they'll tell you that the counterfeits are worth more....crazy!!!!!
False.

Misleading, at least. Rare and particularly interesting counterfeits are worth more if they are copies of COMMON types. Common counterfeits of rare types are worth a tiny fraction of their genuine counterpart.

Take the Type 19 in the op. Tremmel lists the counterfeit at $125 in VF-XF. Fricke lists the genuine note at $10,000 in average VF.
 
False.

Misleading, at least. Rare and particularly interesting counterfeits are worth more if they are copies of COMMON types. Common counterfeits of rare types are worth a tiny fraction of their genuine counterpart.

Take the Type 19 in the op. Tremmel lists the counterfeit at $125 in VF-XF. Fricke lists the genuine note at $10,000 in average VF.
I am not a currency collector, so I have very little knowledge about the market. Based on what I've seen at Civil War shows and based on discussions with vendors, I was led to believe that counterfeit notes are considered more valuable than the originals. I was quite surprised and asked why, and the vendors said that counterfeit Confederate currency of the era (not counterfeits made today) are "interesting" and "rare" and hence it drives the price higher than the relatively more common real notes.

I am not going to defend this viewpoint :timebomb:since I have no expertise at all in this field. I am merely explaining the basis for what I said earlier, which was entirely based on what I heard and saw at shows. Post #17 was a tongue-in-cheek comment about the more worthless something is the more a currency collector pays for it (i.e. start with "worthless" Confederate currency in the sense that it is not legally useable, counterfeit a "worthless" currency which in theory makes it even more "worthless" and yet a collector is willing to pay even more for it :confused:) and how seemingly bizarre this concept is.:eek: I made the comment because the concept seems absurd at face value. My comment wasn't meant to be authoritative knowledge. Anyhow, you have injected some real knowledge into this thread, which is always a welcome thing.:smile coffee:
 
I was somewhat disappointed years ago when I got my first notes in the mail. Talk about limp and flimsy,At first I almost thought they were cheap knockoffs or replicas printed on newsprint.I can see how Upham used cheap inferior paper on his first endeavors. Is it true he got his hands on some banknote quality paper later though?
 
... I was led to believe that counterfeit notes are considered more valuable than the originals. I was quite surprised and asked why, and the vendors said that counterfeit Confederate currency of the era (not counterfeits made today) are "interesting" and "rare" and hence it drives the price higher than the relatively more common real notes.
That's the part that drives me crazy, that so many people get the wrong idea from blanket statements like what "the vendors said." I think most of the vendors probably didn't do much with CSA currency, and were themselves "led to believe" the stuff they heard and were repeating.

The truth is, prices are all over the place, depending on the specific types and varieties. Sometimes the counterfeits are worth more, sometimes the genuine notes are, and sometimes they're about equal. But people get the idea that counterfeits are always worth more, and that's just a load of $#!+.

Not all contemporaneous counterfeits are interesting. Not all are rare. The Upham fakes of the Southern Bank Note Company notes are neither. They are crude woodcut copies of intaglio printed notes, and they vastly outnumber the genuine counterparts.
 
I was somewhat disappointed years ago when I got my first notes in the mail. Talk about limp and flimsy,At first I almost thought they were cheap knockoffs or replicas printed on newsprint.I can see how Upham used cheap inferior paper on his first endeavors. Is it true he got his hands on some banknote quality paper later though?
Not that I'm aware of. I can't absolutely say for sure, but I've never seen an Upham note on good paper. If he got any, it probably wasn't much.
 
False. Upham notes are on inferior paper matching the description of the first part of the above quote. Many lower grade notes are falling apart, not limp but intact as banknote paper would be.
You are conflating two separate subjects. John Spence was a 60 year old merchant in Murfreesboro TN who started a journal as war clouds loomed on the horizon in 1860. So there isn’t any doubt about his description of the bills carried by Bragg’s men. The article I read stated that initially Upham’s souvenir bills were printed on high quality paper that facilitated their unintended use as counterfeits. I leave any other comments on this subject to the experts.
 
So..........was there already a demand in the United States for Confederate memorabilia even before the Confederacy was defeated?
 
Not that I'm aware of. I can't absolutely say for sure, but I've never seen an Upham note on good paper. If he got any, it probably wasn't much.
There were rumors and whispers of rumors that Stanton may have supplied some of the paper to Upham. Just an unfounded rumor,one of many from the Civil War.
 
In Tremmel's A Guide Book of Counterfeit Confederate Currency, he states, "...Upham also offered to print his notes on high-quality banknote paper." This would imply that the use of such paper was not the norm.

I had not been aware of this before. I do not recall ever seeing an Upham note on good paper, but as a rule, I do not collect counterfeits. I have a few, but no Upham notes.

Just guessing, but perhaps one of his on quality paper might command a premium.
 
Most of the above statements about counterfeit Confederate currency being worth more than the original would have some element of truth to them if the word "some" was used.
Personally, I'd be more inclined to say, "a few."
 
In his A Guide Book of Counterfeit Confederate Currency, Tremmel has this to say about Upham and other counterfeiters.

"One approach for estimating the amount of counterfeit Treasury notes circulating in the South begins with the claim Sam Upham made to Dr. Lee that he produced $15 million in 'facsimiles' (approximately 1.5 million notes) during the 16 months his counterfeit business was in operation. To this amount several 'conservative best-guess' adjustments should be made. (A 'conservative' estimate, in this case, means quantity estimates that are at the high end of the range.) Since Upham was not alone in the 'facsimile' business, some amount must be added to include the notes placed into circulation by other counterfeiters.... For the next step, assume that Hilton, a major producer who was in business for roughly the same period as Upham, issued a quantity of counterfeits similar to Upham's output. Also assume that all of the other counterfeiters collectively added another $15 million. So, a conservative best guess might increase the initial $15 million by three times, to $45 million.

"Consideration also must be given to the fact that not all counterfeit/facsimile notes 'went South' and entered circulation. Some actually were kept as souvenirs while others were discovered and confiscated. As another best guess, assume 80% entered the Southern economy. Combining the above estimates and assumptions indicates that up to $36 million in counterfeit notes circulated during the war. Assuming a face value of the typical counterfeit at $10 to $20, this averages out to 2.4 million spurious notes in circulation.

"To compare the total dollar amount of counterfeit currency to the total dollar amount of Confederate currency issued is fairly straightforward. As mentioned above, Confederate Treasury Department records show that $1.554 billion in currency was issued, net of currency retired or recalled. Adding to that $130 million of state, bank, local, and private currency, also mentioned above, gives a total currency supply of $1.684 billion. The percentage of counterfeit to the total of genuine currency, then, is 2.1%. This is admittedly a crude estimate and possibly on the low side. So, to make the estimate even more conservative and allow for a 50% undercount of counterfeit notes, double it to 4.2%.

"In 1999, a related study was published, entitled 'Bogus Money Matters: Sam Upham and His Counterfeiting Business.' It was written by Marc D. Wiedenmier, an economics professor at Claremont McKenna College in California. Wiedenmier measured the impact on the Confederate money supply of Sam Upham's counterfeiting during the 18 months Upham was in production. He estimated that if 100% of Upham's spurious currency entered the Confederacy, that amount, as a percentage of the growth of the money supply ($541 million) of only the CSA Treasury notes, would have been 2.78%. For the same 18-month period, Wiedenmier's study indicated that the percentage of 100% of Upham's counterfeits would have been 2% of the total money supply of Treasury notes ($749 million).

When adjustments are made for non-Treasury currencies, non-Upham counterfeits, and a 'souvenir' allowance of 20%, Wiedenmier's counterfeit-currency amount, as a percentage of the total money supply, is 4.8%----a reasonably close match to the previous rough estimate of 4.2%.

"So, while certainly meaningful, the estimated percentage of counterfeit currency in the money supply does not seem significant enough to have been a major factor in the large drop in Confederate currency purchasing power."
 
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