Surprisingly the Motto, newer style is more sought after than the No Motto, old style, mostly based on printing totals.
Correct. At least double, and sometimes triple the premium. I'm kinda surprised the series didn't change when they added the motto, but maybe the BEP considered a design change on the back of the note not meriting the series change.
The with motto is much harder to find. Most of what I've seen, were not attributed. I have also seen a lot of the series prior to the G advertised as a "Godless Note", which all are.
That would be my guess. Same with the 1934C $20, when the back design was updated mid-series. Similar with the 1934/34A mules, where the change to the faces controls the series designation, and the backs are mixed and matched at random. Every other time a back design was changed, there were simultaneous changes to the face design, and hence a new series. But unless I'm overlooking something, in every case where *only* the back changed, the existing series just continued.
The BEP was required by 1950's era legislation to add the motto "In God We Trust" to all currency. It was a result of the anti-communist fervor of the time. The BEP had pre-produced large numbers of of 18 subject backs for all denominations. They couldn't be re-engraved for technical reasons, and they were very expensive to replace. So the BEP got quiet permission from the Treasury Department to keep using the "Godless" back plates until they wore out, or were made obsolete by the introduction of the more efficient 32 dry-print subject presses then being planned. That didn't fully happen until 1966, when the last "Godless" $100 bill (Series 1950E) was printed on the last operational 18 subject press. They still had new $100 back plates, but the final 18 subject press had conked out and wasn't worth fixing. So to the scrapyard they went. $1 notes are another matter, and by 1962, all the "Godless" 18 subject back plates had worn out. The BEP didn't want to call attention to the fact that it technically had been violating the law since 1955, so it quietly produced new 18 subject plates that complied with the law, and thus printed "with motto" 1935G $1 notes for eight months in 1962, until the new series, 1935H, became current.
Um...not exactly. The legislation requiring IGWT to be added to the currency was specifically worded in such a way as to allow the BEP to phase in the motto gradually as new master plates were made, and keep printing currency without the motto in the meantime. Initially that didn't cause too much confusion. The 1957 $1's with the motto were printed alongside the 1935F $1's without the motto; simple enough. Trouble started when the new Smith-Dillon signatures came along in 1961, and the BEP started printing 1957A and 1935G notes. Some members of the public saw the 1935G notes with new signatures but no motto, and started to complain that the Treasury had "switched back" to the no-motto notes (when in fact they'd never stopped printing them at all). The Treasury finally got so tired of answering these complaints that in early 1962 they tossed out the remaining supply of perfectly good no-motto back plates, and started printing 1935G notes with the motto. Printing of other denominations with the motto didn't begin until 1964, during the Granahan-Dillon signature combination (designated Series 1963). This time, the Treasury again kept on printing no-motto notes into the next signature combination (Series 1950E with Granahan-Fowler signatures), but the volume of such printings was apparently small enough that they didn't get enough complaints to bother adding the motto to these notes. By the way, the trickle of no-motto printings didn't actually end until September 1968, with the last delivery of 1950E $10's. From the first delivery of currency with the motto to the last delivery of currency without it, the transition lasted eleven years and a week!
Hmm. I'll accept that the BEP was never in violation of the law. But I find it difficult to think public pressure would make a difference in the case of 1935G $1 notes. That assumes a level of general public awareness of the details of their currency that is unsupported by facts I know. When you consider that no other denomination note was issued with the motto prior to 1964, it seems even less credible that public pressure was an issue. Unless I am made aware of information I do not currently know, I'm going to continue to assert the 1935G $1 notes with motto exist only because the BEP needed new 18 subject $1 back plates, and it was illegal to make them without the motto, but they didn't want it to be a big deal, so they printed some 1935G with motto notes in 1962, and hoped nobody would notice. Edit: You're right about those 1950E notes. Although the 1950E $100's were the only notes of that series not printed concurrently with Series 1963 notes. There was a time in 1965-66 when the only current $100's were Series 1950E. Those were the days.
I don't want to drift into politics here, but it was less the "general public" and more the supporters of IGWT, who are sometimes, shall we say, rather sensitive about the motto and rather suspicious that the government is trying to remove it. Remember in 2007 when the first Presidential dollars came out, with IGWT on the edge, and there were enough angry complaints to Congress about the "missing"/"hidden" motto that it got moved to the obverse of the coins within a couple of years. I'm pretty sure the "general public" was barely aware that the Presidential dollars even existed, but the people who cared about IGWT cared a *lot*.
I have noticed that with the 35G stars, all those with numbers before 19000000 are without motto and those after with.
It's actually 19080000, but pretty close. The standard print run was 360,000 notes (20,000 sheets of 18), so the cutoff serial has to be a multiple of that. For the non-star notes, the cutoff is D48960000J.
Politics drifted into currency production. The 1954 law that required the motto "In God We Trust" be printed on all currency was a legacy of a law passed in 1907, mandating that the motto be stamped on every gold coin. Theodore Roosevelt believed that putting God's name on money was blasphemous, considering all the evil that is done with or for money. As he had gold coins redesigned in 1907-8, Roosevelt ordered they not include the motto. A huge political stink resulted, and Congress legislated that the motto be included on all gold coins. Thus the no motto/motto varieties among double eagles and eagles. In 1913, the new Democratic administration decided to issue a five cent piece in the same postmodern genre as the 1909 Lincoln cent. The resulting coin is known today as a Buffalo nickel, and it does not include the motto "In God We Trust" in its design. It was current until 1938. The furor that caused eagles and double eagles to be redesigned in 1907 was nowhere to be seen in 1913 when the coin involved was was a nickel. It didn't rear its head again until 1954, and since then all coins included the motto, the obvious brainless target was currency, which was required by chest-beating patriotic Congressmen to also include the motto. However, it was the Eisenhower years, so sense and sensibility eventually overcame McCartyism and empty sloganeering. The BEP was told to begin adding the motto to currency "with all deliberate speed", so to speak. That's why in 1966 the current $100 note still didn't have the motto on it, and nobody noticed.
