Some Old Cold Hard Cash

$20 schillings bill from 1773

Recently I visited the Wells Fargo Museum in Downtown San Francisco not long go. The museum was great (Yes, I took many pics) but they had a cool exhibit of old money that was used back in the day. Here the pics of the old school cash.

From 1863 to 1935- National banks in the United States issued notes with their names and charter numbers on them. These notes were backed by bonds deposited by the federal government. Here are three examples;

Wells Fargo-1905

Georgia National Bank in Athens, Ga

National Bank of  San Mateo at Redwood City-1929

Here are some more examples:

Bank of Claredon (N.C.)-1807

$5 Gold Coin-1870. Congress charted nine national gold banks in California where the note could be exchanged for gold

Here is an only in San Francisco piece:

San Franciscan Joshua Norton declared himself Emperor of the United States in 1859. He printed his only script and residents and merchants accepted his script at face value.

Finally, I saw this and had to share it on this. This the oldest known check drawn on an American Financial Institution. It was written by an Owen Biddle on May 18th, 1782 for $857 and 82/90 dollars:

I wonder what it would be worth today.