$1 Series of 1917 & 1923 LTs Plugged a Gap

From 1900 forward, the only $1 and $2 notes in circulation were silver certificates. The last of the $1 and $2 Series of 1891 Treasury notes had just ceased to be issued and the Series of 1880 legal tender notes $1s and $2s had been phased out back in 1896. The various silver purchase acts had flooded the Treasury with silver, which had been coined and monetized, but no one wanted to carry the things around. Silver certificates were issued against them so the Treasury had adopted a policy to use silver certificates for the nation’s $1s and $2s. In fact, the Treasury was only intermittent releasing higher denomination silver certificates after the turn of the century in preference to flooding the country with the silver $1s and $2s.

The same policy had extended to $5 silver certificates between 1900 and 1907 because they constituted the only $5 Treasury currency in circulation during that period. However, there was plenty of $5 bank currency in the form of national bank notes in circulation.

We’ll focus on the $1s here. There is a parallel, but slightly less interesting, story