You never know what may pop up unannounced in an auction. I was perusing an online catalog last week for a non-numismatic auction. Toward the end was a small number of currency lots, including a few nationals. All pretty common, nothing uncirculated. Then there was this $5 1902 series from Republic National Bank of Dallas -- a common bank, not noted in the catalog as anything out of the ordinary. But then I did a double take. There were two sets of signatures! I did some asking around and although this was a post-production error by the bank's printer (not the BEP) it was still considered a significant error. The question was, had anyone else noticed it? Unfortunately (for me) the answer was yes. The estimate was $200-250, but I dropped out at $950. With the buyer's premium, the winning bidder picked it up for about $1090 -- and still got a pretty good price. Is there a lucky forum member out there with anything to add?
This is a National Bank Note, issued by National Banks and chartered by the US Government. It should have been backed by US Bonds on deposit with the US Treasury. The banks were required to maintain a redemption fund amounting to 5% of any outstanding note balance in gold or lawful money. The serial number was assigned by the issuing bank. Serial numbers over 10,000 are common. National Currency was printed between 1862 and 1935. The earlier the issue, the rarer it is. Denominations ranged form $1.00 to $1000.00 with the five, ten and twenty being the most common. Lower denominations were issued for a short time and are rare. High denominations were costly to save and rarely printed. The blue seal was used after the red seal. The bill is signed by 2 people, the Cashier and the President of the Bank. Since both of their signatures appear twice it is safe to assume this note was issued and redeemed twice. As for the price, it's on the high side given the condition of the bill. Still, it's neat to own and they don't make them like this anymore. Hope this helps.
I think you're missing the error -- take a closer look at the scan. Both signatures are doubled up and they are identical. At the larger banks, which issued thousands of notes, these were not actually signed by a real person. The signatures were added later on sheets of four notes by a private printing company. In this case, on the first pass the signatures were probably printed too high, so the printer ran it through again a little lower. Nationals were not re-signed each time they were redeemed. The price was actually quite reasonable for an error of this scarcity. A similar error sold in Heritage Auctions for $1250.
