I have been reading and am wondering if anyone has actually seen or own a peice of fractional currency from the Jacksonian era. Supposedly these notes were produced/used during the Panic of 1837 when gold and silver shot up dramatically, as these notes were used as emergency. If anyone has any information on these notes, that would be great! Thanks, Greg **There is a picture of this note that I was talking about.... Comments?
Though it can be justifiably said that the root causes of the Panic of 1837 date back to Jackson's time... it actually occured during the presidency of Martin van Buren, not Andrew Jackson. There was a shortage of small coinage, but as far as I know it was mostly solved by the issuing of private metal tokens, known as "Hard Times tokens." I'm not aware that fractional currency was issued, by the US Government or anyone else, during this time (in fact the earliest paper money issued or sanctioned by the US Government, fractional or otherwise, wasn't issued until 1861). So nobody will have the notes you described, as they don't exist! You can probably find people who have some Hard Times tokens though.
I have added the picture up above. This is not my photo, but an example of this type of fractional currency.
When I saw the picture, I was wondering that... I was 99% sure there wasn't any fractional currency prior to the Civil War... but thanks for confirming that! Quite a few Hard Times tokens depcit political satire in the same vein. Like the one with a picture of a jackass, with the legend "I follow in the steps of my illustrious predecessor" (a quote from van Buren's inagural speech) to place the blame on the panic with van Buren following Andrew Jackson's policies. Other tokens are actually supportive of van Buren/Jackson.
The US government did not issue fractional currency prior to the Civil War. There are examples of fractional notes issued prior to this time, however. They would have been issued by private banks and merchants. Here is an example of a 25 cent note from an unknown Wisconsin bank (although it is probably the territorial Bank of Wisconsin) dating from the 1830s. (The image is from an upcoming Heritage Auction).
That's pretty interesting. Very Cool Wisconsin Note. This state wasn't admitted into the Union until 1848 so that accounts for why it was part of the Wisconsin Territory..
Yeah, probably should have specified there was no US Government issued fractional currency before the Civil War... thanks for catching that!
