Hey, My brother has a coin and currency book somewhere that I read years ago, and one of the questions was "Has the U.S. ever introduced a $3 Federal Reserve note?" and the answer was, no, but they originally had plans to do so. So does anyone have any idea "why" the Treasury dropped the idea to issue $3 bills? Did they just figure it would not circulate? I know a $3 bill would be worse off than the $2 bill, but someone once told me that horse tracks would love a $3 bill so they could raise their minimum $2 bets to $3. $3 bills would make a nice numismatic collectible and it would be neat if they would have also printed a few for general circulation, for those who wanted to clown around. I probably looked like a fool, but I once emailed a Congressman years ago about ressurrecting the government's original plans to print $3 bills, but I guess I wasn't thinking what a dumb idea it was back then, or was it....? :rollling:
Both the 19th century legal tender acts and national banking acts provided for $3 notes, but this does not translate into "had plans to do so." The acts simply gave the Treasury the ability to issue $3 notes. The Treasury met the need for odd-ball low denominations with $1 and $2 notes.
U.S. Issues? No. Private issues? Yes http://nationalheritagemuseum.typepad.com/.a/6a00e550caa66d88340133f5630b6f970b-popup
Does the Treasury still have the ability to issue $3 notes? (I don't think the Treasury can issue a $3 denomination without Congressional action anymore, but I'm not 100% sure) And if they did in the past, why do you think they dropped the idea? That would have been cool.
Initially it could have been part of a plan to issue the $3 denomination - if you look at the $1 and $2 notes from that period you will notice in the centre of the note the 1, 2, and 3 numerals. As work progressed on the notes, the $3 denomination was indeed passed over - indeed that slot could be filled with a $1 and a $2. By the end of the Civil War obsolete banking issues had been eclipsed by the new National Bank issues and of course the Legal Tender notes - the tax on private note issue was 10% which was prohibitive and eliminated the vast majority of commercial banks issuing notes. But there was one little loophole that was later closed - states and municipalities, particularly in the southern states had a history of issuing notes and continued to do so until the federal government finally put a stop to those issues. At the cessation of formal hostilities at the close of the Civil War, the era known as "Reconstruction" saw numerous instances of currency being issued by municipalities and states, primarily in the 1860's. By the mid 1870's most of the reconstruction era governments had been voted out of office and the so called "carpetbaggers" were sent away. This unusual and now very rare example of a municipally issued $3 bill was indeed likely one of the last issued in this denomination - the city government that issued it was out of office the following year and these note issues were terminated. The vignette of the Union welcoming back the south, with their swords cast to the ground, was used on a Rhode Island obsolete in 1865, also on a note from Memphis TN from the same period. On this City of Mobile AL note it was used as early as 1865 and as late as this date. These notes were quickly removed from circulation in 1876 and largely forgotten.