Fr. 1203 $100 1882 Gold Certificate PMG Choice Fine 15.. ...

Description

Fr. 1203 1882 $100 Gold Certificate Fr. 1203 $100 1882 Gold Certificate PMG Choice Fine 15.
Series 1882 $100 Gold Certificates were issued for more than three decades. However, there was a huge gap between 1891 and 1898, where no new plates or print runs were ordered for a number of the denominations. The gap leaves us with two distinct Gold Certificate issuing periods. Those intervening years were the entirety of the Panic of 1893, which ravaged the country until around 1898, when the unemployment rate dropped and money began to move.

With no new notes being issued, those already in circulation were used heavily to meet the needs of the channels of commerce, even though hoarding of metal backed notes was popular. This offering is from the first issuing period, where print runs were minuscule compared to the second issuing period.

Among the most important of these rarities is the Fr. 1203, featuring the signatures of Blanch Bruce and A.U. Wyman, who served jointly in the Treasury from April 1883 to April 1885. Three such notes are known; the two others are out of the reach of collectors, part of the Federal Reserve Bank Collections in Richmond and New York.

Major paper rarities are rarely in original and unaltered condition. This note, though a moderately circulated Fine 15, was preserved without the need for alterations. The color is quite bold for the grade, with deep wheaten gold underprints, a prominent bold brown seal, and crimson red serial numbers.

If this $100 numismatic rarity were round and glittered, it would undoubtedly be a multi-million dollar item. This note circulated in place of the $100 in gold coins stored in the Treasury to back it, perhaps the reason it is the lone survivor from a very chaotic period of our monetary history that looked to gold for stability and growth.

Estimate: $250,000 - up.

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