Recently purchased Confederate note with a counterfeit connection

I collect Confederate paper money now and then. I'd like to get all 70 of the genuine varieties from 1861 to 1864, but that's never going to happen. Eight varieties, including the four "Montgomery, Alabama” issues, which got the Confederacy started, are very expensive. So, I collect the pieces I can afford often with a good story around them.

Sam Upham had a long and interesting life. Here is "the Readers' Digest" version. In his youth he served in the U.S. Navy, including some time in the Mediterranean. After he left the Navy, he took the long route to California, around the Cape Horn, to participate in the gold rush. He didn’t find his fortune there, but he did start a newspaper and learned the printing business.

After he returned the East Coast, he settled in Philadelphia where he opened a printing business. One of his products was “facsimiles of Confederate Notes.” At first, he made them as souvenirs, but he soon found out that there was a market counterfeits.

The Union Government couldn’t exactly endorse this practice, but they didn’t really want to condemn it because it undermined the Southern Cause. Therefore Sam continued his business and crooked people put his products to work in the South.

I bought this piece a few years ago. It is an Upham counterfeit of Confederate note, T-19.



You will note that he signed the piece at the bottom as a "facsimile," but that could easily be cut off the piece.



Here is a genuine example of note T-19. It was printed by the Southern Bank Note Company in New Orleans. The company made very nice notes. It had to close when the Union forces captured the city in 1862. This is scarce note that is worth a few thousand in choice VF. It is seldom found better than that.

 

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