Note i-25 — Chapter I · PINCHING TIMES
Reading edition
How serious these abuses ultimately became may be inferred from Merrick’s narrative (174-80), and from what Horace White says on the subject, in Money and Banking, pp. 351-52:—
“The bewildering state of the paper currency before the Civil War may be learned from the numerous bank-note reporters and counterfeit detectors of the period. It was the aim of these publications to give early information to enable the public to avoid spurious and worthless notes in circulation. These were of various kinds: (1) ordinary counterfeits; (2) genuine notes altered from lower denominations to higher ones; (3) genuine notes of failed banks altered to the names of solvent banks; (4) genuine notes of solvent banks with forged signatures; (5) spurious notes, such as those of banks that had no existence; (6) spurious notes of good banks, as 20’s of a bank that never issued 20’s; (7) notes of old, closed banks still in circulation.
“The number of counterfeit and spurious notes was quite appalling, and disputes between payer and payee as to the goodness of notes were of frequent occurrence, ranging over the whole gamut of doubts,—as to whether the issuing bank was sound or unsound, whether the note was genuine or counterfeit, and, if sound and genuine, whether the discount was within reasonable limits.”