Why did someone stamp “Hawaii” on this note?

I found this note while going through my grandmother’s estate after she passed away and I’m wondering why someone stamped “HAWAII” on the side of it?

Was this done by the government? Or just some bored person who loved Hawaii?

I don’t know anything about paper money so paper currency collectors if you could help me out I’d appreciate it.

Thanks!

 

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Its supposed to be like that special currency its called the brown seal note i think back then Hawaii was new to our nation and they needed our money

 

Oooh so it’s legit done by the government and not considered graffiti or damage right?

 

The Hawaii overprint was meant to invalidate these notes in the case of Japan invading Hawaii. The Federal Government also issued these in four different denominations: $1, $5, $10, and $20. The $5, $10, and $20 were issued as Federal Reserve Notes instead of silver certificates.

 

Forget about that I edited my post but yes it did happen during the printing process not damage.

 

This is one case where Googling is your friend. Googling "Hawaii dollar" will get you the info you need a lot faster than we can.

Here's a page with more information than I knew:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_overprint_note

 

The reverse should have a much larger overprint. They were made during WWII so we could invalidate them instantly if Japan invaded.

 

Oh wow that’s interesting!

I have a big interest in WW2 so that’s cool that this is kind of a part of that.

By any chance do you know if this money could be spent in the rest of the US?

Like if somehow some ended up in San Francisco and Japan had not invaded would it have been acceptable as legal tender like normal US currency?

 

Ah ok yeah it says HAWAII in black all across the back.

 

Oh ok thanks!

I tried Googling but I guess I entered the wrong thing.

I googled “US Dollars in Hawaii” and I got a bunch of links informing me that the US Dollar is the legal tender currency of the Hawaiian Islands which didn’t really help.

 

Well Japan didn't invade Hawaii so yes it would be legal tender as long as it was not a Japanese person using it.

 

Does the Hawaii overstamp increase or decrease the value?

 

It should be worth more than a normal dollar bill since its far less common.

I find $1 silver certificates from that era all the time selling for like $2 but I’ve never seen one of these in the bargain bin.

 

An average circulated Hawaii $1 silver certificate is typically worth around $20.00 to $30.00. Whereas an average circulated series of 1935 silver certificate is worth around $1.25.

 

I just looked it up... The Hawaii dollar bill you have is worth about $20

 

Oh ok I’m just wondering how/why my grandmother got it.

What’s really ironic is she was Japanese herself but was a little girl living in Japan during WW2 until she met my grandfather while he was stationed in Japan.

So I’m guessing she got it after the war.

 

Sure enough, just tried it for myself. I'm a bit surprised that didn't turn up more results on the wartime notes -- I saw at least two links on the first page of results that mentioned them, but you'd have to already know what you're looking for, which kind of misses the point.

I guess it's reassuring to see that Google isn't actually reading our minds. Or maybe that's just what They want us to think...

 

I use Bing... it's reading my mind

 

Going off your post @Gam3rBlake, these weren't just limited to circulating in Hawaii. These notes circulated quite extensively in the Pacific theater, and many were made into souvenir notes by servicemen, which are commonly referred to as "short snorters." Some of these notes merely detail the names of fellow servicemen, while others sometimes detail various campaigns and assignments.

 

Oh cool, I didn’t know that either lol. Like I said I’m more into coins.

My uncle gave me a dollar with a yellow seal on it too which he said was from Africa and I think those were from WW2 as well.