1690–1788

On 10 December 1690 the Massachusetts Bay General Court authorized £7,000 in bills of credit to pay for an expedition against Canada. The Newman Numismatic Portal and the U.S. Currency Education Program agree: it was the first public paper money in the Western world. The value was not in the metal of the substrate: it was in the colony’s promise.

Those Colony or Old Charter Bills were indented — the wavy cut along the edge had to fit the stub the treasurer kept — and carried the Massachusetts Bay seal, with the Indian and the legend Come over and help us. The Newman Numismatic Portal records the denominations of 5, 10, and 20 shillings and £5, and three committee signatures. The other colonies copied the expedient.

In 1775 the Continental Congress issued Continentals to finance independence. The notes promised Spanish milled dollars or their equal in gold or silver; they paid no interest. Inflation and British counterfeits left them “not worth a Continental.” The last resolution was that of 14 January 1779.

This case closes in 1788, the year the Constitution was ratified. Article I, Section 10, forbade the states to emit bills of credit. The collapse of Continental paper delayed federal paper until the greenbacks of 1861–1862.

The $5 of 14 January 1779, Friedberg CC-91, with the SUSTINE VEL ABSTINE emblem, already has a note page; the manuscript serial is not readable on this photograph. Provincial issues such as Pennsylvania 1773 and the New Jersey six-shillings of 1776 also belong here: a serial is not invented to open their pages.