You should all be familiar with $2 bills that have a green treasury seal on them.
Perhaps you’re also aware that $2 bills from 1928 to 1963 have a red seal and serial number.
But have you ever seen a $2 bill – or any bill for that matter – with a blue seal?
What does it mean?
Hi I’m John, the director of the Two Dollar Bill Documentary, back with yet another video
where I answer your questions about the $2 bill.
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Today's topic is one I absolutely HAD to address, since so many of you have submitted this question.
Consequently, I can’t reward a $2 bill to any one person for their submission.
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So what’s the burning question on everyone’s mind today?
“What does the blue seal mean?”
The answer isn’t as clear cut as I’d like, but let's give it a go.
The easiest answer is that a blue seal on currency means that the bill is a silver certificate.
Back in the day, when miners dug up silver and it was minted into one dollar coins, that
was a preferred method of currency for civilians.
But to carry around a lot of money meant carrying around a lot of coins, and… that might get heavy.
So banks came up with a form of what’s known as representative currency.
They issued silver certificates equal to the value of the number of silver dollars they
had in reserve.
In fact, on one of the first silver certificates, a $10 note from 1878, a clear definition was
printed right on the bill.
It says, “there have been deposited with the treasurer of the U.S., payable at this
office to the bearer on demand, ten silver dollars”.
You may notice that this bill does not have a blue seal, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
Also issued in 1878, all denominations from ten dollars up to and including a $1,000 note.
By 1886, silver certificates were also issued in the one, two and five dollar denominations.
Notice that none of these early silver certificates have a blue seal either.
What I find interesting though, is that all of them have blue serial numbers.
There’s no definitive answer as to why these early silver certificates had red seals, but
I did notice that all silver certificates from 1899 on, which by then were issued only
in one, two and five dollar notes except for a 1908 ten dollar issue - had blue seals.
It stands to reason that the Treasury Department decided to use the blue seals to designate
these bills as silver certificates beginning in 1899.
The logic for changing the seal color to blue would be to further distinguish silver certificates
from other kinds of bills with a red seal, like Treasury notes or even National Bank Notes.
So, silver certificates all had blue seals beginning in 1899, and to take my favorite
denomination – the two – as an example, these bills still came with that clear distinction:
“This certifies that there have been deposited in the treasury of the Unites States of America
Two Silver Dollars, payable to the bearer on demand.
Unfortunately, this is the only $2 silver certificate with a blue seal.
In 1913, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, which established a central banking system
in the United States.
Soon after, the Treasury withdrew Silver Certificates from circulation and sold the backing silver
to Great Britain.
To make up the loss in circulation, these bills, known as Federal Reserve Bank Notes,
were issued as a replacement.
The blue seal was probably kept intact for this reason.
Production of these notes ended in 1922.
By that time, the Treasury had replaced the missing silver, and Silver Certificates were reissued.
In 1923, new versions of a one and five dollar note were issued.
By 1928, Treasury secretary Andrew W. Mellon, in a move that would reduce production costs
and increase production speed, approved a reduction of size of U.S. currency.
This decision also had a major effect on silver certificates.
For one thing, the $2 bill would never be a silver certificate again.
It was given a red seal in 1928, a designation that it was a Unites States Note – a topic
discussed on another video on this channel.
It would only be issued this way through 1963.
The five dollar note also had a red seal issue in 1928, but by 1934 it was also being issued
as a silver certificate, joining the $1 note, which had silver certificate issues from 1928 through 1957.
These smaller silver certificates had a slight change in verbiage.
From 1934 on, they stated: "This certifies that there is on deposit in the Treasury of
the United States of America 1 dollar in silver payable to the bearer on demand."
The big difference was that it no longer said ‘silver dollars’, as you could now exchange
this bill for one dollar’s worth of silver bullion, not just coins.
It just so happens that I own one of these bills – a 1935E series.
I received it as change at, of all places, a Taco Bell.
You’ll notice that the back of the bill looks exactly like the back of today's one dollar bill.
In March of 1964, Treasury Secretary C. Douglas Dillon halted redemption of silver certificates
for silver dollar coins; By 1968, you could no longer redeem any of these notes for silver of any kind.
Eventually, all one and five dollar bills became green seal Federal Reserve notes,
as did the two dollar bill, with its re-issue for the bicentennial in 1976.
If you go to the bank with a blue seal note today, they’ll consider it worth face value,
the same as its green seal counterpart.
Not all blue seal, small size notes have added value, in part because so many were printed,
But before you take yours to the bank, be sure to consult with an expert like a currency dealer
to assess its real value.
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