i know i am a beginning paper collector, and this may be old news to some of you... but i just noticed that the, i guess you could call it legal disclaimer, on federal reserve notes from series 1928 say "redeemable in gold". this was a shock to me. i know it used to say "redeemable in lawful money" and now it says "legal tender", i just never realized it originally said gold! i learned something new today!!
That note was backed by gold. FRNs today are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. Which makes you feel more secure?
i always thought all federal reserve notes were backed by the faith and credit of the government. i never knew rederal reserve notes were once backed by gold. gold certificates, yes. rederal reserve, no. like i said, learned something new today.
It,s got "the sum of" on bank of england notes. I think a 100% gold backed note is a great idea, as long as its very hard to counterfeit and easily redeemable.
Well, every paper bill was backed by gold until we went off the gold standard in the 70's. Even after gold certificates had stopped being made. That's the whole point of a gold standard.
The United States has been off of the Gold Standard since April 25th, 1933....maybe you're thinking of silver backed certificates that quit being redeemed for silver in June, 1968.
<<Well, every paper bill was backed by gold until we went off the gold standard in the 70's. Even after gold certificates had stopped being made. That's the whole point of a gold standard.>> <<The United States has been off of the Gold Standard since April 25th, 1933....maybe you're thinking of silver backed certificates that quit being redeemed for silver in June, 1968.>> Only gold certificates, Treasury notes, Federal Reserve notes, and United States notes were ever backed by gold reserves. Silver certificates were backed by silver, national bank notes by Treasury bonds deposited by the issuing banks, and Federal Reserve Bank notes by Treasury and other kinds of bonds. The January 1934 Gold Reserve Act ended the redemption of currency for gold. Circulating gold certificates officially ceased after the act was passed. Federal Reserve notes continued to have a gold backing until the 1970s. So did United States notes, although I don't know until when. I presume it lasted until the Treasury stopped issuing them in the 1960s.
Note that it is redeemable in gold only at the US Treasury. At the Federal Reserve Banks it is redeemable in gold or "lawful money" which I would render as silver certificates or US notes. The choice would have been up to the FRB (guess what they would have picked). For most people actually redeeming the note for gold would have been a cumbersome process.
Nixon made our FRNS no longer backed by gold in the 1970's is what I meant. Maybe "gold standard" wasn't the right term, but he did detach our dollars from gold, and turn them into a purely fiat currency.
I am also unfamiliar with note collecting -- in theory if you had a $20 gold certidicate you wouldbe able to pick up a St. Gaudens? The idea that people could exchange paper for silver still boggles my mind lol
True, but they wouldn't actually have had to go through that formal process in order to obtain the gold. Any bank would've been happy to exchange this note for a gold eagle.... Between 1879 and 1933, all forms of U.S. currency circulated at par--so while it was technically true that some were backed by gold, others by silver, and others only by bonds, in practice all of these could readily be exchanged for one another. That's one reason why the 1933 gold recall didn't meet with more public resistance than it did: most people didn't really care which form of currency they held, since for fifty-plus years all of them had maintained their relative value.
