I purchased numerous confederate and WWII bills today from an estate sale. I need help identifying if they are very nice real wons or fake. Thanks in advance.
I would have no idea if they are fake or real, but I saw one or two on a coin show recently. I remember one was only printed on one side, are any of these like that?
The $1, $2 and $5 US bills all say "copy" on them, either in the upper or lower left, so they are very likely not the real thing. The others have that "photocopied look" to me, unless the white balance on your camera or something else is off. Some of the red ink looks pretty modern. The pictures and features look very washed out and wrong to me. This is based on the photos only, of course, and I'm no expert, but my feeling is that the rest are also not genuine.
There's a web site if you google it that walks you though real from fake items. The red ink isn't something that I seen before ...they are signed in black ink which has high contents of iron which turns brown over the decades. Good luck They look photo copied
Most of them are blank on the reverse side as it cost extra money to have them print a reverse. The Confederacy was short on money so they left it blank.
I don’t think any of the signatures were signed with red ink but it was common for the serial numbers to be hand written in red ink.
I believe all of them to be fakes. Some even say COPY on them. There’s just to many things that aren’t correct on those bills. Some are only signed once and all CSA Notes have two signatures.
Here’s two of mine to compare. I know yours and mine are electronic but I think the differences should be obvious. I didn’t post the reverse as they are blank but I do have some with Interest stamps and signatures if you are interested.
Like others have opined, I also believe they are fakes. I have literally seen these fakes many times over the years. I believe they were for sale in the 1970's via magazine advertisements. They usually come in similar groups. Not an expert in Confederate bills, but own some and am just old so remember seeing the exact items in the exact condition over the years. I vaguely remember the magazine ad actually.
Yes, I hope the price was low. One must be knowledgeable with these to be successful. One of the lowest priced notes is the horses pulling cannons printed in 1864. A very poor condition note will still cost you about $40. A nice note is now close to $90. A lot of CSA Notes so in the $200 to $300 range but there are some that’ll cost you four figures easily.
They were also available in 5 & 10 stores when I was a kid. Most were sold in packs of several. Same as the 1860's civil war newspapers were. Nearly all said copy or facsimile on them, even back in the 60's.
Good to know, thank you. There weren't any 5 & 10s around, but there were similar like Ben Franklin, etc. All I know for a fact is they popped up occasionally everywhere brought in by people who inherited them and thought they were worth a lot of money. I think I remember Confederate stamps being similarly copied, (facsimile).
Of the items you posted the fourth down on either column has a COPY printed on the note. Some of the others are copies. sorry to tell you .