Federal Reserve Bank Notes, issued until 1971, are banknotes that are legal tender in the United States, together with United States Notes, Silver Certificates, Gold Certificates, National Bank Notes and Federal Reserve Notes. They had the same value as other kinds of notes of similar face value. Federal Reserve Bank Notes differ from Federal Reserve Notes in that they are backed by one of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks, rather than by all collectively, in a similar way to National Bank Notes, but using Federal Reserve banks instead of chartered National banks. The only US banknotes still in production as of 2012 were the Federal Reserve Notes.
Large size Federal Reserve Bank Notes were first issued in 1915 in denominations of $5, $10, and $20, using a design that shared elements with both the National Bank Notes and the Federal Reserve Notes of the time. Additional denominations of $1, $2, and $50 were issued in 1918.
Small size Federal Reserve Bank Notes were printed as an emergency issue in 1933 using the same paper stock as National Bank Notes. They were printed in denominations of $5 through $100. A National Bank Note has a line for the national bank's president's signature. The small size Federal Reserve Bank Note printed a bar over the label for this line since Federal Reserve Banks had governors, not presidents. This emergency issue was prompted by the public hoarding of cash because of the many bank failures happening at the time. This also limited the ability of the National Banks to issue notes of their own. Small size Federal Reserve Bank Notes were discontinued in 1934 and no longer available from banks since 1945. As small size notes, they have brown seals and serial numbers, as do National Bank Notes of the era.
Famous quotes containing the words federal, reserve, bank and/or note:
“Goodbye, boys; I’m under arrest. I may have to go to jail. I may not see you for a long time. Keep up the fight! Don’t surrender! Pay no attention to the injunction machine at Parkersburg. The Federal judge is a scab anyhow. While you starve he plays golf. While you serve humanity, he serves injunctions for the money powers.”
—Mother Jones (1830–1930)
“We must reserve a back shop all our own, entirely free, in which to establish our real liberty and our principal retreat and solitude.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“It was like passing a boundary to dive
Into the sun-filled water, brightly leafed
And limbed and lighted out from bank to bank.
That’s how the stars shine during the day.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“In our Mechanics’ Fair, there must be not only bridges, ploughs, carpenter’s planes, and baking troughs, but also some few finer instruments,—rain-gauges, thermometers, and telescopes; and in society, besides farmers, sailors, and weavers, there must be a few persons of purer fire kept specially as gauges and meters of character; persons of a fine, detecting instinct, who note the smallest accumulations of wit and feeling in the bystander.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)