Talk:Greenback (1860s money)

Hazard Circular

Someone have to talk about the Hazard Circular:

"Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war power and all chattel slavery abolished. This I and my European friends are in favor of, for slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the care of the laborers, while the European plan, led on by England, is that capital shall control labor by controlling wages. The great debt that the capitalists will see to it is made out of the war, must be used as a means to control the volume of money. To accomplish this the bonds must be used as a banking basis. We are now waiting for the Secretary of the Treasury to make this recommendation to Congress. It will not do to allow the Greenback, as it is called, to circulate as money any length of time, as we cannot control that. But we can control the bonds and through them the bank issues" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.164.52.89 (talk) 17:45, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Turn this into a DAB

The templates should be removed from this "article," and it should be turned into a disambiguation page. The links go to real articles. Yopienso (talk) 20:51, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Ontologic problem to be fixed

United States Notes and Federal Reserve Notes are greenbacks too.

The term greenback also refers to later U.S. bills, which have also been green on back and gray/black on front. As defined in AHD and Merriam-Webster, and as already correct at Wiktionary's greenback entry. This article needs fixing. It needs to be called Greenback (1860s money) with a hatnote that points to other greenbacks that are also money, namely, United States Notes and Federal Reserve Notes. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:15, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Done. This seems related to the DAB comment from 2012 above. Given that Demand Notes and United States Notes have articles, it is not clear why this article was forked. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:26, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Incomplete entry

What happened to them? Were they ever redeemable dollar for dollar for gold, or were they forever a lesser thing. I seem to remember they eventually became as good as gold, and there was a controversy about it at the time, but I don't remember when or any details. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 32.210.185.185 (talk) 01:12, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

In recent times, they are extremely collectible, with a $1 greenback going for several hundreds of dollars and the rarer $20 and $50 ones going for several thousands. Their value now far exceeds the face value. Perhaps this does not answer your question, but also it should be mentioned in the article. Wastrel Way (talk) Eric

Featured picture scheduled for POTD

Hello! This is to let editors know that File:US-$1-LT-1862-Fr-16c.jpg, a featured picture used in this article, has been selected as the English Wikipedia's picture of the day (POTD) for December 28, 2022. A preview of the POTD is displayed below and can be edited at Template:POTD/2022-12-28. For the greater benefit of readers, any potential improvements or maintenance that could benefit the quality of this article should be done before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page. If you have any concerns, please place a message at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day. Thank you! Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.9% of all FPs} 21:47, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

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  $1: Salmon P. Chase
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  $2: Alexander Hamilton
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  $5: Freedom and Alexander Hamilton

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  $10: Abraham Lincoln, eagle, Art
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  $20: Liberty
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  $50: Alexander Hamilton

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  $100: spread eagle
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  $500: Albert Gallatin
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  $1000: Robert Morris

Greenbacks were emergency paper currency issued by the United States during the American Civil War that were printed in green on the reverse side. They were in two forms: Demand Notes, issued from 1861 to 1862, and United States Notes, issued from 1862 to 1865. A form of fiat money, the banknotes were legal tender for most purposes and carried varying promises of eventual payment in coin, but were not backed by existing gold or silver reserves. These nine banknotes, part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution, form a complete set of the 1862–63 issue of greenbacks. Each bears the signatures of L. E. Chittenden (Register of the Treasury) and F. E. Spinner (Treasurer of the United States), and features an engraving of a prominent individual or other artwork, identified above.

Banknote design credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; scanned by Andrew Shiva

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