1914 Notes Top CSNS Heritage Auction

By Numismatic News March 08, 2011

This article was originally printed in Numismatic News.
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Heritage Currency Auctions has been chosen to sell one of the most significant currency discoveries in recent years: a set of five 1914 San Francisco Red Seal Federal Reserve Notes, comprising one each of the $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 denominations, with each note bearing serial number L1A.

Pre-auction estimates for the group, which will be sold as single lots, total more than $350,000. The notes will be available in Heritage’s Central States Signature Currency Auction, held in Rosemont, Ill., April 27-29.

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“This is the most significant group of serial number 1 type notes to reach the market in a generation,” said Allen Mincho, director of currency auctions for Heritage. “No one had any inkling that these notes even existed, let alone that they are spectacularly pretty and original.”

Also included in the consignment are a $5 1914 Red Seal example from the Kansas City district bearing serial number J1A and a $10 1914 Red Seal from the Dallas district displaying serial number K1A. All of these notes are new to the collecting public as not a word of their existence had been heard since they were released in 1914.

Prior to the discovery of these seven notes, only 13 serial number 1 Red Seal Federal Reserve Notes from all 12 districts combined were known to collectors, and, of that dozen pieces, eight of the 13 are permanently in museum or institutional collections, squarely out of the reach of collectors forever.

“No $5 examples were known to exist in private hands, and only one $10, one $20, one $50 and two $100 serial number 1 examples were reported as available to collectors,” said Mincho, “although several of those specimens have been off the market for decades. No low serial number pieces were previously reported for any denomination from the San Francisco district.” 

After the notes were graded by PCGS Currency, each – save for the Kansas City $5 – were assigned that firm’s PPQ designation, indicating that each possessed “Premium Paper Quality.”

The $5 Kansas City note grades About Uncirculated 50, the $10 Dallas grades Extremely Fine 45PPQ, and the San Francisco notes grade Gem New 65PPQ, Very Choice New 64PPQ, Gem New 65PPQ, Choice New 63PPQ, and Very Choice New 64PPQ respectively.

While the consignor wishes to remain anonymous, the pedigree of all seven notes can be traced to the family of an early official of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank.

The auction, held in conjunction with the Central States Numismatic Society convention, will be posted at www.HA.com/3513 around April 8 and online bidding will begin at that time.