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1896 10 Dollar Silver Certificate Educational Series

10 Dollar bill Educational Series 1896 Silver Certificate
10 Dollar Silver Certificate Educational Series

  This is a reproduction of the obverse of a proposed $10 Silver Certificate designated Series of 1897, originally intended for issuance in conjunction with the $1, $2, and $5 notes of the 1896, or Educational Series of 1896.
  This engraving of the vignette entitled "Agriculture and Forestry" was executed by Charles Schlecht,based upon the design submitted by Walter Shirlaw, a Scottish-born artist, illustrator, and engraver. Mr. Shirlaw also had been commissioned to prepare the design for the $5 note of the Educational series. The $ 10 notes were not printed since bills of that denomination were not specifically provided for in the ACT of Congress of August 4,1886 that authorized the 1896 series of notes.

  Shirlaw's beautiful design for the $10 note, Agriculture and Forestry, represents its two subjects as graceful, vigorous figures standing hand-in-hand. The energy of the two is emphasized by a haze of sunbeams which set the couple off from the note's background. An old but beautiful woman, representing the South, sits to the right of the couple, holding a large jug of wine; to the left is a youth representing the West, two doves alighted on the border beside him. Ocean waves play about the couple's feet, and the borders of the note are replete with a cornucopia of corn, grains, fruits and flowers.

  This $10 note, anticipated for some time, was never released.

  However popular the 1896 artwork may have been to the public, it proved to be unpopular with bankers. "All judges of good designs and workmanship have admitted the superiority of the new notes to anything ever before produced by the Government," the Times reported on August 15, 1897. However, it continues, "Bankers have generally denounced them as the most unsatisfactory notes ever issued... the denominations of the notes were not distinctly marked. Paying tellers depend upon the figure in the upper left-hand corner, to guide the eye in counting bills rapidly handled." (Certainly this was a legitimate complaint in the case of the $10 note, where the numerals are a considerable distance from the corners.) Also, because of the high amount of fine inkwork used in the backgrounds, "complaint was heard that the new notes became smudgy and suspicious-looking with a little use".

  The Bureau of Engraving and Printing designers began work on correcting these problems. Engravers began the process of creating new plates for the series, adding large open spaces of uninked background and making the corner numbers clearer and more prominent. Geometric lathe-work was also designed into the front upper corners of the revised bills, as an added deterrent to counterfeiting.

  Politics, however, chose this moment to step in and play the 1896 currency a devastating blow. The new currency designs had been progressing with the approval of J. G. Carlisle, the Secretary of the Treasury under President Grover Cleveland. Cleveland chose to retire at the end of 1896, leaving the Presidency open to either the "free-silver" advocate William Jennings Bryan or the Republican William McKinley. Neither candidate was ideal for Carlisle; he disapproved of Bryan's free-silver movement, believing it would lead to monetary instability, yet being a prominent Democrat he could not bring himself to continue in his office under the Republican McKinley. And so it was that, when McKinley was elected at year's end, Secretary Carlisle retired and the Treasury was placed in the hands of a new Secretary, Lyman J. Gage.

  Secretary Gage, a bank president, preferred practicality to artistry. Shortly after taking office in 1897 he stopped the work of refining the 1896 designs, and instead announced his plans to have "practically one design" for all United States currency. The new designs would be simple, clear and straightforward. "Neither will fresco painters be called in to make future currency designs", the Times reported on May 4, 1897.

"It can be said authoritatively... that no more of the so-called 'new certificates' will be printed," the Times went on to say. "It may take years to wipe out the entire issue and substitute bills."

The Educational Series - 1896 Silver Certificates