United States · Federal Reserve Note · Emergency

$5 note, 1934

$5 · HAWAII · Series 1934 A

Face with Lincoln, brown seal and serials L68013147A, and HAWAII on both margins; back with the Lincoln Memorial and HAWAII in hollow letters. Series 1934A, San Francisco, L–A block. Unslabbed.

Catalog facts

Pick reference: P#38 · Fr. 2302
Serial number: L68013147A
Signatures: William Alexander Julian (Treasurer of the United States) and Henry Morgenthau Jr. (Secretary of the Treasury)
Condition: Ungraded. No numerical grade is assigned from the photographs.
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. USPaperMoney.Info places serial L68013147A in the brown-seal run L66132001A–L69132000A — 3,000,000 notes. That page does not split Series 1934 from 1934A inside the run: before 1950, simultaneous series were mixed before numbering. This face prints SERIES OF 1934 A, so the type is Fr. 2302 (P#38), not Fr. 2301, Series 1934 without a letter. Friedberg lists regular HAWAII $5 notes — Series 1934 and 1934A together — at 9,416,000. That figure is a type total, not a Fr. 2302-only printage and not the day this note was finished. The published format is about 156 × 67 mm (Numista); that is not a measurement of this piece. Bureau of Engraving and Printing; district L / 12, San Francisco.

Face, $5 Series 1934 A, serial L68013147A — Face of the Series 1934A HAWAII $5, serial L68013147A: Lincoln, the brown seal, HAWAII in the margins, district L / 12, and face plate C79.

Face of the Series 1934A HAWAII $5, serial L68013147A: Lincoln, the brown seal, HAWAII in the margins, district L / 12, and face plate C79.

Back, $5 Series 1934 A, serial L68013147A — Back of the HAWAII $5, serial L68013147A: the Lincoln Memorial, HAWAII in hollow letters, and back plate 1467.

Back of the HAWAII $5, serial L68013147A: the Lincoln Memorial, HAWAII in hollow letters, and back plate 1467.

The note

The Series 1934A $5 Federal Reserve Note with the HAWAII overprint (Pick 38; Friedberg 2302; Numista N#202416) 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. The series letter matters: the face prints SERIES OF 1934 A and sets it apart from Fr. 2301, Series 1934 without a letter. The mule of this denomination, Fr. 2301m, starts from that 1934 face; this piece is not that mule. 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 Abraham Lincoln, the L seal at left, and the brown circular Treasury seal at right. Brown serials L68013147A repeat (L–A block). Solid black vertical HAWAII overprints flank the design. Check letter C sits to the left of the Reserve seal; face plate C79 sits at the right, beside the HAWAII. The green back shows the Lincoln Memorial and HAWAII in hollow letters across the field. Back plate 1467 sits near the right inner border of the vignette. It is not a star replacement: the serial ends in A. It is not the Series 1935A HAWAII $1, serial S40499058C, nor the Series 1934A HAWAII $10, serial L45104670B, nor the Series 1934A HAWAII $20, serial L86654132A, 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. USPaperMoney.Info records the brown-seal run L66132001A–L69132000A, 3,000,000 notes, and does not date it or split it by series letter. Friedberg lists regular HAWAII $5 notes, Series 1934 and 1934A together, at 9,416,000. 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. 2302 example: serial L68013147A, not a type illustration.

Scarcity and printage

Fr. 2302 is the Series 1934A HAWAII $5. Friedberg does not give a Fr. 2302-only total: regular 1934 and 1934A notes total 9,416,000, the shortest regular printage in the HAWAII series. The run of this serial is 3,000,000 brown-seal notes, with no numbering date published here. The keys of the type are paper quality, the sharpness of the overprint, the Fr. 2301m mule, and star replacements. This piece is neither that mule nor a star. This record does not republish prices.

Population

The photographs show a specimen with no grading label. No numerical grade is assigned from those images. No population census is quoted, and no claim is made about cleaning, pressing, or repairs.