2017-07-18 Tue

Contemporary auctions are mostly dominated by small-sized high denomination notes. And they always belong to Series 1934 issue. But witnessing one from the earlier Series 1928 seldom happens, so the appearance of one such $5,000 note at the Stack’s Bowers Galleries currency auction at the American Numismatic Association World’s Fair of Money in Denver on Aug. 2 is a rarity in itself.

Till now, only 18 Series 1928 $5,000 Federal Reserve notes are currently recorded from all 12 Federal Reserve districts combined, as opposed to 86 for the Series 1934 issues. Friedberg 2220-F is one of the six known coins of the 1,440 originally printed for the Atlanta district. PCGS Currency assigned it a grade of Very Fine 30 with Premium Paper Quality, making it the grading service’s second finest known after an Extremely Fine 45. It is estimated to sell for $125,000 to $175,000.

The $1,000 note is the highest note that is collectible among large-size high-denomination Federal Reserve notes as all $5,000 and $10,000 notes are with the government. A recently discovered Federal Reserve note from the Boston bank (F-1133-A) is only the fifth known. It comes with a grade of PCGS Currency EF-40 PPQ, as well as the one with the lowest serial number (A4315A). Its opening bid of $48,000 is less than the $51,700 a VF-30 example sold for in January. It is expected to sell for $80,000 to $120,000.

The national bank note section of the sale is headlined by a relic from the Wild West: Deadwood, S.D., the home to, among others, Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickock and his friend Martha Jane Canary, better known as Calamity Jane, and Sheriff Seth Bullock. The American National Bank of Deadwood has the Series 1882 $10 Brown Back note with a bank serial number 1 printed on it. It makes the cataloger believe that the note was saved by either its cashier Ben Baer or President Harris Franklin, and was passed down through one of their families until it ended up in a Pennsylvania estate. The note is second from the bank and one of only a dozen large-size national bank notes from the entire city. It is graded VF-30 PPQ by PCGS Currency and is offered with an estimate of $60,000 to $80,000.

The 551 lot auction includes Colonial notes, obsolete notes, a large section of Confederate currency, large-size and small-size issues with an extensive run of $500 and $1,000 notes, and national bank notes.