Back in the old days, banknotes were hand signed. Wouldn't this have been an extreme hassle? Like with a ton of these notes being printed, and each having to be signed by at least 2 people, didn't the signers' hands get tired?
If somebody wants to give you money to sit at a desk all day and sign your name over and over. You don't ask questions about efficiency or complain about hand cramps; you just do it.
It's all relative. They didn't have as many notes in circulation as we do toady. Folks back in the ole days were not as trusting as we are today. And not only were the bills hand signed, so were the serial numbers.
Some large sized Nationals in the USA were handsigned up until 1928 - usually smaller hometown banks. Larger national banks had a signature plate created for their notes. When the small sized notes came out that year signature plates were created for each of the charters and kept at the Treasury. The last hand signed notes anywhere were in Scotland and Northern Ireland during the 1950s - but only larger ie 20 and 100 Pound notes
Somewhere (I don't remember if on the web or in a catalog) there is a picture of a room full of people affixing the hand signatures on Brazilian notes from the 1940s.
So it wasn't just one person singing all of them then, sort of like how the President has that secretary who signs small fry for him?
Here is a handsigned national: This note is historical for several reasons, it is a portrait of Senator John Sherman, author of the National Banking Act of 1864 that created national banks, and then Lancaster Ohio was his and his brother General William Tecumseh Sherman's hometown. Here is a slightly earlier Scottish handsigned note from 1914: The signature of the head accountant was printed, but the cashier was still handsigning.
