Friedberg 341 (W-3623). 1880 $100 Silver Certificate of Deposit. PCGS Currency About New 53.This attractive note features the portrait of James Monroe at left with a large brown spiked Treasury Seal at center. Blue printed serial numbers are found in panels at lower left and top right. The engraved signatures of Treasury officials Rosecrans and Huston are stacked to the lower right of center. The striking back design with SILVER CERTIFICATE in bold letters is printed in black. Just 100,000 examples of this rare Silver Certificate of Deposit variety were printed and today only around 30 examples are known to survive.pThe currently offered note sits near the top of the condition census and displays just light traces of circulation. The paper is bright and broadly margined. All of the design elements are sharply printed including the large Treasury Seal at center. PCGS Currency has graded just a single example finer at the Choice New 64 level. This example last sold for $235,750 in a 2007 auction. At the time the note was in a PMG Choice About Uncirculated 58 EPQ holder. pSilver Certificates of Deposit are one of the rarest major classes within federal currency (not to overlook the extra rarity of the high $100 denomination). It is popular to put them with regular (later) Silver Certificates, but these are a distinct class. If the true difference were more widely recognized, the demand for them, already intense, would be even stronger. Unlike the later Silver Certificates, the Silver Certificates of Deposit did not see wide general circulation. Instead, most were used in bank transfers, mining company transactions, and the like.ppFrom Dean Oakes Fixed Price List of 1975; Stacks sale of March 1993, lot 264; Currency Auctions of Americas sale of January 2001, lot 1572; Lyn Knights sale of June 2007, lot 48.
