Special souvenir card planned for ANA show in Charlotte
A limited-issue, souvenir card featuring a rare, 19th-century National Bank note is being prepared by one of the organizations hosting the American Numismatic Association’s National Money ShowSM in Charlotte, North Carolina, March 21-23.
Designed by currency dealer and ANA member Morris Lawing, the souvenir card features a reproduction of a Second Charter Brown Back $5 note issued by the Commercial National Bank of Charlotte and dated 1894. Lawing, also a member of the Charlotte Coin Club (CCC), says that only three or four of the original notes are thought to exist today.
The Charlotte bank, which operated from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries (when it merged into what later became the Bank of America), issued its own money under the National Currency Act of 1863. During the Civil War, when gold and silver coins were hoarded and the public mistrusted unsecured legal tender notes known as “greenbacks,” the United States Treasury urged the issuance of National Bank notes. Over three Charter Periods that extended until 1928, banks were granted a 20-year, federal charter to issue their own paper money, not to exceed 90 percent of the bonds each bank was required to deposit with the Treasurer of the United States.
The Brown Back notes were the first issued by banks under the Second Charter, and bear a portrait of President James A. Garfield, who was assassinated in 1881.Available for $5 each at the National Money Show, only 1,000 souvenir cards will be produced by the CCC. Proceeds from their sale will support the club. (Beginning March 31, remaining cards will be available for $7, postpaid, from the Charlotte Coin Club, P.O. Box 33292, Charlotte, NC 24233.)
For more information about the National Money Show, contact the ANA Convention Department, 818 N. Cascade Ave., Colorado Springs, CO 80903-3279; phone 719-632 2646; fax 719-634-4085; e-mail convention@money.org; or visit the ANA website at www.money.org.
Originally Release Date: February 26, 2003
ANA Contacts: Phone: 719-482-9872
Email: pr@money.org