Confederate Currency: A Field Guide to Authentication

Confederate currency presents the contemporary collector with an authentication challenge unlike that of any other American paper money series. The notes were issued under wartime conditions by a government that was, by the end of the war, in collapse; the printing was distributed across multiple contractors with varying levels of production quality; and the notes were extensively counterfeited during the war itself, both by Union operatives as a deliberate economic warfare strategy and by independent counterfeiters operating on both sides of the lines. The result is a body of material in which contemporary counterfeits have themselves acquired collector interest, in which post-war facsimiles produced for advertising and souvenir purposes circulate in large numbers, and in which the standard authentication frameworks that apply to other paper money series must be adapted to wartime production realities.

The seven major Confederate currency issues, organized by the Criswell catalog system in standard use among collectors and dealers, span from the initial Montgomery issues of 1861 through the seventh issue of February 17, 1864. Each issue presents distinct authentication considerations, and a brief survey of the major considerations is useful before discussing the more technical markers.

The First Issue, the Montgomery notes of March 1861, comprises four denominations ($50, $100, $500, $1000) printed by the National Bank Note Company of New York under contract executed before the formal outbreak of hostilities. These are the most artistically refined Confederate notes and the rarest by surviving population. The $1000 Montgomery (T-1) and the $500 Montgomery (T-2) are the keys to the series; total surviving populations of authentic examples number in the low hundreds for each. The authentication considerations for Montgomery notes are dominated by the question of contemporary versus modern reproductions, because the Montgomery notes have been the subject of facsimile production from the immediate post-war period through the present.

The Second Issue, the Richmond notes of July 1861, expanded the denomination structure and shifted production to Southern contractors, principally Hoyer and Ludwig of Richmond and Manouvrier of New Orleans. Authentication for these notes turns substantially on the contractor's production characteristics. Hoyer and Ludwig notes have a distinctive plate impression quality that differs identifiably from Manouvrier notes, and either differs from the work of Keatinge and Ball of Columbia, South Carolina, which became the dominant contractor for later issues.

From the Third Issue forward, Confederate notes were printed by an evolving cast of Southern contractors using paper of varying quality, ink of varying composition, and engraving plates of varying refinement. The authentication framework for these issues focuses on five principal markers: paper composition and weight, ink composition and color, plate engraving quality, signature characteristics, and serial numbering characteristics.

Paper composition is the first marker an authenticator examines. Authentic Confederate notes were printed on a range of paper stocks reflecting wartime supply constraints. Early issues used relatively high-quality rag paper, often imported through the blockade from English or French sources. Later issues used paper of progressively lower quality, including paper with significant cotton content, paper with visible fiber inclusions, and paper that has aged in distinctive ways over the intervening 160 years. Modern reproductions almost always fail the paper test, because the paper stocks used in modern facsimile production do not match the wartime stocks in either composition or aging characteristics. The most common modern fakes use bleached and tea-stained modern paper that, on close examination under raking light, presents a fiber structure and surface texture that an experienced examiner immediately recognizes as wrong.

Ink composition presents the second major marker. Confederate inks were iron-gall based for the black-ink components and used a range of organic pigments for the colored components. Iron-gall ink ages in characteristic ways, developing a brown halo around the printed image as the ink's iron content slowly oxidizes the surrounding paper fibers. The colored inks fade in characteristic patterns, with red and blue components fading more rapidly than green or yellow components. Modern reproductions use modern inks that do not age in these characteristic patterns, and the comparison of an authentic note to a modern reproduction is often decisive at the level of ink color alone.

Plate engraving quality is the third marker, and it is the marker that requires the greatest experience to evaluate. Authentic Confederate notes were produced from engraved plates of varying quality, but all of the plates share certain characteristics that derive from the engraving technology of the period. Line work is consistent in depth and width within a given plate; vignettes are executed in a recognizable engraving style of the 1860s; lettering is consistent with the typography conventions of the period. Modern photographic reproductions, no matter how high-resolution, do not present the line work characteristics of an engraved plate. Modern engraved reproductions, of which a small number exist, can sometimes be more challenging, but they typically reveal themselves through anachronistic line styles or through technical errors in the reproduction of the vignettes.

"Confederate currency was extensively counterfeited during the war and has been extensively counterfeited since."

Signature characteristics are the fourth marker. Confederate notes were signed by hand at the Treasury Department in Richmond. The signatures are those of specific clerks whose identities are known and whose signature characteristics have been documented. Inconsistencies in signature style — a signature that does not match any of the known clerk hands for the issue date, a signature that uses ink of the wrong composition, a signature that has been added to a note that was originally unsigned — are diagnostic of either contemporary counterfeit or modern reproduction.

Serial numbering characteristics are the fifth marker. Confederate notes carry serial numbers applied either by hand or by mechanical numbering devices, depending on the issue. The mechanical numbers exhibit specific font characteristics and impression depths that vary by issue and by contractor. Hand-applied numbers exhibit characteristics of the specific clerks who applied them. Modern reproductions almost universally fail the serial numbering test, either by using anachronistic numbering fonts or by exhibiting impression characteristics inconsistent with the period's mechanical numbering devices.

Beyond these five primary markers, an authenticator considers several secondary markers: the presence and characteristics of any cancellation marks, which Confederate notes accumulated as they passed through the Treasury's redemption process during and after the war; the characteristics of any contemporary mounting or pin-hole evidence, which the notes accumulated as they passed through pre-twentieth-century collector practice; and the overall structural integrity of the note, which authentic Confederate notes typically exhibit in ways that modern reproductions do not.

For the collector or estate executor encountering Confederate currency for the first time, our standard recommendation is straightforward: do not rely on visual examination alone, and do not rely on the seller's representation. The Paper Money Guaranty (PMG) service, which is the dominant third-party authentication service for Confederate currency, provides authentication, grading, and encapsulation services that establish the bona fides of an individual note in ways that the secondary market accepts. The cost of PMG submission is modest relative to the value of an authentic Montgomery note or a high-grade $1000 Gold Certificate of any Confederate type, and the resulting certification eliminates the authentication question from any subsequent transaction.

We have, over the firm's thirty-eight years, examined Confederate currency at every level of the market, from large accumulations of common circulated material brought to us by Vermont and New Hampshire estates whose ancestors retained Confederate notes as wartime souvenirs, to single-note consignments of museum-quality Montgomery and Richmond issues. The principal practical lesson is that the Confederate market rewards authentication discipline and punishes its absence. The collector who buys only PMG-certified material will, over a collecting lifetime, save many multiples of the PMG submission cost in avoided losses on counterfeit or reproduction material. The collector who relies on visual examination alone will, over a collecting lifetime, accumulate at least some material whose authentication will eventually fail.

Confederate currency is a fascinating and historically important collecting area. The notes are documents of a war and of a failed national project, and they carry that history in their physical materiality in ways that few other American collectibles do. The authentication discipline that the market requires is the price of admission to that history, and it is a price that the serious collector pays willingly.