By CoinWeek ….
Bidding ends very soon on GreatCollections.com for this Fr. 259 1886 $5 Silver Certificate Note, graded Extremely Fine 40 by PCGS Currency. It is pedigreed to the Oxford Collection of U.S. Paper Money. The Friedberg 259 Large Size silver certificate is the rarest of what collectors affectionately call the Silver Dollar Back – so-named because of the Morgan silver dollars portrayed on the back of the bill. Only about 48 to 50 examples of the note still exist, according to world and U.S. paper money experts Track & Price.
The coin motif on the back is a fitting (if intensely literal) design choice, not just because silver certificates were payable in silver dollar coins but also because production of the first silver certificates was authorized by the Bland-Allison Act of 1878 – the same legislation that created the Morgan dollar. However, lower denomination silver certificates ($1, $2, and $5) were not authorized until Series 1886, making this note a first-year specimen.
A portrait of General and President Ulysses S. Grant, not far removed from the design of today’s $50 Federal Reserve Note, is on the front. Also on the front are the signatures of William Starke Rosecrans, who served as Register of the Treasury from 1885 to 1893, and Conrad N. Jordan, Treasurer of the United States from May 1, 1885, to March 23, 1887.
Examples in higher grades do exist, but the note being offered by GreatCollections presents an uncommon opportunity to own this rare piece.
At the time of writing, the highest of 22 bids is $4,600 USD.
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