Super-Rare $20 Bill to Be Auctioned
Nov. 27, 2000 -- For decades, it was tucked away in a desk drawer, but soon arare and colorful $20 bill issued to help pay for the Civil Warwill be in the national spotlight.
“If someone was putting together a complete ... collection of$20 bills, you’ve got to have this,” said David Sundman, presidentof Littleton Coin Co., in Littleton, N.H.
The 1866 certificate was discovered this fall when its owner, aman who lives in the Connecticut River Valley of New Hampshire andVermont, tried to determine the value of old money passed downthrough his family.
The owner, who wants to remain anonymous, learned he was holdinga treasure, worth at least $250,000, in Sundman’s estimation.
‘I Was in Shock’
“I collect large-sized paper money,” Sundman said, “and I wasin shock.”
It is one of only six known examples of 48,000 such billscirculated between 1865 and 1878 to help finance the Civil War. Theseries, Sundman said, comprises the rarest $20 bills evercirculated in the country.
“Collectors will be astonished,” he said.
The owner said that when he first asked a couple of dealers toappraise coins and 64 other pieces of 19th Century paper money hereceived, he got conflicting answers. One estimated the collectionwas worth $1,100. A second “spotted something of great interest,”and estimated the value at $2,000, the owner said.
“It just struck me there may be something here worthpursuing,” the owner said, and was referred to Sundman’s company.
“We told them right away, ‘This is a big deal,“‘ Sundman said.
Super-Rare Money
Of the six such bills known to survive, one is in theSmithsonian Institution and another is in the government’s Bureauof Public Debt, Sundman said. Three are in collectors’ hands. Thelatest is in Littleton’s vault, awaiting auction next spring.
A similar $20 bill discovered last year sold at auction for$528,000, he said.
The bill is a gold certificate, meaning it was redeemable fromthe U.S. Treasury for $20 in gold. It is 50 percent larger and morecolorful than today’s currency. The front depicts an eagle perchedon a Union shield, symbolizing the fight to preserve the Union,Sundman said.
By the grading system used by collectors, the bill is in veryfine to extra fine condition, Sundman said. It has a few small edgesplits along the bottom margin and a few tiny pinholes, and thecolors are fresh and bright.
The owner is the fourth generation in his family to own thebill. It came into the family through a great-grandfather who was aNew York banker.
The owner received it within the last year from his mother, whohad kept it in a leather pouch in her desk in the New York area.
Trying to Keep Cool
When Littleton called to tell the owner the note was worth atleast a quarter of a million dollars, he stayed calm — briefly.
“When I got off the phone, I asked my fiancee, ‘What do youthink that bill might be worth?’ She guessed $2,000 and I said,‘Higher.
“‘$3,000.’
“‘Higher.’
“‘$10,000.’
“‘Higher.’
“That went on for a while and I couldn’t do it any longer,” hesaid. “I told her and she just jumped up and down.”
The find was exciting even for Sundman, no stranger to raremoney.
“You see rare things, but they are usually in dealers’ casesand they’ve got big prices on them,” he said. “You don’t oftenmake a discovery of something that is previously unknown.”
The note will be auctioned the first week of March at theChicago Paper Money Exposition, one of largest paper money eventsin the world.