United States · Federal Reserve Note · Emergency

$10 note, 1934

$10 · HAWAII · Series 1934 A

Face with Hamilton, brown seal and serials L45104670B, and HAWAII on both margins; back with the Treasury building and HAWAII in hollow letters. Series 1934A, San Francisco, L–B block. Circulated, unslabbed.

Catalog facts

Pick reference: P#40 · Fr. 2303
Serial number: L45104670B
Signatures: William Alexander Julian (Treasurer of the United States) and Henry Morgenthau Jr. (Secretary of the Treasury)
Condition: Circulated; a visible horizontal fold and edge wear. Ungraded.
Printage: Series 1934A, printed as SERIES OF 1934 A: that designation is not the year this specimen was numbered. The Treasury introduced HAWAII currency on 25 June 1942. Friedberg lists Fr. 2303 — Series 1934A only; there is no Series 1934 Hawaii $10 without the letter — at 10,424,000 regular notes. That figure is a type total, not this serial’s printage and not the day the note was finished. Serial L45104670B belongs to the L–B block. No numbering window that contains it is published here. The published format is about 156 × 66 mm (Numista); that is not a measurement of this piece. Bureau of Engraving and Printing; district L / 12, San Francisco.

Face of the Series 1934A HAWAII $10, serial L45104670B: Hamilton, the brown seal, HAWAII in the margins, district L / 12, and face plate L164.

Back of the HAWAII $10, serial L45104670B: the Treasury building, HAWAII in hollow letters, and back plate 903.

The note

The Series 1934A $10 Federal Reserve Note with the HAWAII overprint (Pick 40; Friedberg 2303; Numista N#247191) is Treasury emergency paper for the Territory of Hawaii and Pacific operations, not a silver certificate: the $5, $10, and $20 of that issue are FRNs; the HAWAII $1 is a silver certificate. There is no Series 1934 Hawaii $10 without the letter: Friedberg numbers only Fr. 2303. District L / 12, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Brown Treasury seal and serials; black bank seal; signatures of William Alexander Julian and Henry Morgenthau Jr. The black face on cream paper carries Alexander Hamilton, the L seal at left, and the brown circular Treasury seal at right. Brown serials L45104670B repeat (L–B block). Solid black vertical HAWAII overprints flank the design. Check letter L sits to the left of the Reserve seal; face plate L164 sits at the right, beside the HAWAII. The green back shows the Treasury building in Washington, D.C., and HAWAII in hollow letters across the field. Back plate 903 sits near the right inner border of the vignette. On this design, back plates from 585 belong to the macro group: face L164 with back 903 is the ordinary issue. Friedberg does not list a mule variety of Fr. 2303. It is not a star replacement: the serial ends in B, the block letter. It is not the Series 1934A HAWAII $20, serial L86654132A, nor the Series 1935A HAWAII $1, serial S40499058C, nor an ordinary green-seal FRN. The motto “IN GOD WE TRUST” is absent from the back. It is shown unslabbed, with no grading label. The notes remain legal tender at face value.

The HAWAII overprint

After Pearl Harbor the Treasury marked Territory of Hawaii dollars — and notes used in Pacific campaigns — so captured stocks could be invalidated if Japan took the islands. HAWAII currency was introduced on 25 June 1942: brown seals and serials and the word HAWAII on face and back. Printed Series 1934A names the type, not the numbering year of this specimen. Friedberg lists Fr. 2303 at 10,424,000 regular notes and does not publish the run that contains serial L45104670B. The emergency restrictions were lifted on 21 October 1944; after that, ordinary U.S. currency and HAWAII notes could circulate together in the designated areas. That date ends the restrictive arrangement, not a demonetization. Official withdrawal began in April 1946.

The frame for those emergency issues — Hawaii, the yellow seal, AMC, Bernhard — is on the World War II emergency-banknotes case, under Notaphily. This page is the documented Fr. 2303 example: serial L45104670B, not a type illustration.

Scarcity and printage

Fr. 2303 is the Series 1934A HAWAII $10. Friedberg assigns it 10,424,000 regular notes and does not list a mule variety. That figure is a type total, not this serial. The keys of the type are paper quality, the sharpness of the overprint, and star replacements. This piece is not a star: the serial ends in B. This record does not republish prices.

Population

The photographs show a circulated specimen, with a horizontal fold across the field and edge wear. No grading label is present. No population census is quoted, and no claim is made about cleaning or repairs.