The most striking feature of the legal tender notes of the Irish Free State and the early issues of the Central Bank of Ireland is the portrait of Lady Lavery. While the portrait of Lady Lavery is well known, it was never intended that her image should be recognized on the Irish notes that circulated from 1928 until the late 1970s. The original intent was that the vignette on the notes should depict a typical Irish Cailín (Girl). However, the intention was lost and history records that an American lady adorns the notes. How did this happen?

In 1921 the Irish Free State was established. After several years it was decided to reform the currency issued in Ireland as, until that time, banknotes were issued by the commercial banks—as they are today in Scotland and Northern Ireland. These notes were not legal tender, they were simply promises to pay by the banks. In 1927 it was decided to introduce legal tender notes and to reform the notes issued by the banks, which were to become ‘The Consolidated Banknotes’. (The Consolidated Banknotes became known as the ‘Ploughman’ notes, because of the ploughman illustrated on the front of the notes.) The committee chosen to advise on the design of both the Legal Tender Notes and the Consolidated Banknotes was Thomas Bodkin, Director of the National Gallery of Ireland, Dermod O’Brien, President of the Royal Hibernian Academy, and Lucius O’Callaghan, a former Director of the National Gallery.

In late 1927 the ‘Note Committee’ petitioned Sir John Lavery to provide a portrait of an archetypical Irish Cailín to adorn the notes. The choice of Sir John Lavery (1856 – 1941) to provide the portrait was no accident. Born in Belfast, by the 1920s Lavery had become the greatest contemporary portrait painter in Ireland. He had studied in Glasgow, London and Paris, and worked throughout the continent and in England. His works had been acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Louvre, and other European galleries. In 1921 he was elected to the Royal Academy and in the late 1920s he was at the height of his success. (more…)

Before the invention of money, the only way to trade goods was via barter. If you had a spare goat but wanted a big pile of wheat, you had to find someone in the reverse position. This would have been fine in a community where the only possessions were wheat and goats, but once you threw a few more items into the mix the limitations of the barter system became glaringly obvious.

First, there was the problem of matching up desires. What if the person with the wheat was only interested in swapping it for hand axes? It could be a long time before the first man found an axe-rich individual in desperate need of a goat. In the meantime, he might starve.

Second, what if the wheat man did want a goat, but not until his daughter’s wedding in three months’ time? Had they been able to read and write, the protagonists could have drawn up a contract, but at this stage there were no literate societies. Even if there had been, a system relying on written records of who owed what to whom would have become hopelessly unwieldy once there was a reasonable amount of trade going on.

As it was, the parties to the deal would have had to rely on memory. This was open to abuse (”What are you talking about? I never said I’d give you a whole goat!”) and still more liable to become overtaxed (”If Ug owes Stig seven axes, Stig owes Rok four clubs and Rok owes Ug two goats, how many bear hides does Stig owe Yed?”). And there was always the risk that the poor old goat might turn up its toes before the wedding day. (more…)

By; Fred Reed for Coins Magazine

No collection of Rebel currency is complete without Criswell Type No. 1, the fabled “Montgomery $1,000” note, so-called because they were issued early in the Civil War from the first Confederate States of America capital with “MONTGOMERY” on their face.

Yet only about 100 individuals at any one time have the opportunity to call this fabled rarity their own. This is because only 115 are believed to remain from the 607 notes originally issued in 1861, and some collectors own more than one. In fact, one fabled collection existing today has an unfathomable 10 of these wonderful rarities.

From the outset Confederate officials turned to the printing press to fund unprecedented expenditures brought on by armed conflict. By the end of the war, the insurgents had buried themselves under a pile of worthless promises to pay.