by Tom Butenhoff for the Action Advertiser

Have you noticed the new five-dollar bills? They’re circulating now, and they are a little different, thanks to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

The National Bureau of Engraving and Printing was established back on August 29, 1862. It was started in a single room in the basement of the main treasury building where two men and four women separated and sealed by hand one- and two-dollar United States notes, which had been printed by private bank note companies.

Today, there are approximately 25,000 employees who work out of two buildings in Washington, DC, and at a new facility located in Forth Worth, TX. The official opening of the western currency facility took place on April 26, 1991.

Electric lighting came to the bureau in 1888. Along with the nation’s currency, the bureau took over the printing of all revenue stamps in 1876 and began printing postage stamps in 1894. During World War II, the bureau over printed stocks of regular currency notes with distinguishing identification for use in the Hawaiian Islands.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing has printed currency for the governments of the Republic of Cuba (1934), Siam (1945), Korea (1947), and the Philippines (1928).

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Manhattan, New York – Spink Smythe (http://www.Smytheonline.com) to offer Part 14 of the Schingoethe obsolete currency collection April 9th, 2008. The auction will contain 1037 lots of obsolete notes.

When it came to coins and paper money Herb Schingoethe collected almost everything, but it was obsolete currency that his wife Martha liked to collect most of all. She fell in love with the incredible diversity of issuers, and with the artistic quality of the vignettes on the notes. She enjoyed meeting and dealing with the people who bought and and sold obsolete currency. Martha had the skills and the energy required to organize and maintain everything they acquired. Her husband Herb had the passion to collect on a grand scale. Together they created what is now known as the Schingoethe collection.

On April 9th, 2008 Spink Smythe will be offering part 14, as this incredible collection continuing the tradition of exceptional rarities and choice notes from many diverse series. This sale feature the final section of Illinois notes from Herb’s core Illinois collection that were treasured by Herb and Martha. The sale also includes many western rarities including some exceptionally rare Utah notes. This sale also contains notes from the North, South and Midwest, including many pieces from Connecticut, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Tennessee. Many well vignetted and choice proof notes that Herb and Martha prized are also featured. (more…)

(Dallas, Texas) – Fifteen $20 Federal Reserve Notes from the infamous 1971 “D. B. Cooper” skyjacking will be offered to the public for the first time in June by Heritage Auction Galleries of Dallas, Texas (www.HA.com). The notes are owned by Brian Ingram, 36, of Mena, Arkansas who was eight years old in 1980 when he found the only ransom money ever discovered from the still-unsolved skyjacking.

“Some of these notes have the initials of investigators who examined the recovered money after Ingram found it along the banks of the Columbia River near Vancouver, Washington in February 1980,” said Steve Ivy, Co-Chairman of Heritage and a long-time paper money collector.

“The serial numbers all match the FBI’s list of $20 bills given to the skyjacker known as ‘D.B. Cooper’ who parachuted from a jetliner with the cash somewhere between Seattle Washington and Reno, Nevada during a rainstorm on November 24, 1971. The 15 pieces consigned by Ingram include two Series 1963-A and four Series 1969 Federal Reserve Notes.”

The D.B. Cooper cash will be offered as part of a big auction of Americana memorabilia in Dallas and online, June 13 and 14. (more…)

Dallas, TX. A piece of rare and never-circulated Hawaiian paper money - a $500 note that was to be issued in 1879 - is being offered at auction in Rosemont, Illinois on April 16-18. The $500 note, which exists only as a set of proof printings of the face and back plates, is so incredibly rare that it remains unpriced in the standard currency reference guides. The pair of proof printings is one of only two known as well. This pair of proofs is included in the catalog for the Official Auction of the Central States Numismatic Society convention, being held in Rosemont, Illinois on April 17-19. The catalog for the auction is now posted by Heritage Auction Galleries on their HA.com/Currency website.

“With only two such sets known to exist,” explained Heritage currency expert Allen Mincho, “it is understandable that they are unpriced in the Krause reference guide. This set made its public debut at the 1990 auction of the archives of the American Bank Note Printing Company. Designed for the Kingdom of Hawaii, they are printed on proof paper which has been mounted on card stock, as was the custom for ABNCo file copies. The face proof has a folded registry stub as produced which extends over the edge of the card stock.”

“The face of the note,” continued Mincho, “also bears vignettes of King Kamehameha, sailing vessels, a locomotive, and sugar cane harvesting. The obligation clause reads ‘five hundred dollars in silver coin payable to the bearer on demand.’ This design only exists as these proof printings. They have been awarded classification as Pick #5 in that reference guide.” (more…)

By Allen Mincho, Bank Note Reporter

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the time gold soared to over $1,000 per ounce, it was the time that the bear in “bear market” rose up on its hindquarters to maul even such an established Wall Street name as Bear, Stearns.

What is one to make of such times? And, more important for those whose role it is to report, advise and generally pontificate, what can one say to bring clarity and direction to a currency market caught in an American economy that is beginning to appear closer to that of Argentina than Switzerland?

A look at history gives annoyingly little guidance, nor does it offer black-line rules that can be applied to the situation in which we seem to find ourselves today. During the past bout of “stagflation,” the term applied to the economy of the 1970s where inflation was high and growth low, the currency market rose steadily through the decade. As inflation and interest rates reached record levels not seen since the Civil War, the currency market erupted in an orgy of speculative excess, with prices of many type notes doubling and tripling within an 18-month period, buoyed by record prices for precious metals and an economy where confidence had disappeared and fear reigned. Read Full Numismaster Article