Cut Notes: Intriguing, Historical and Unusual

NOTE: This article is the first of a two-part synopsis of the seldom used practice of preparing for or cutting notes in halves (or smaller pieces when necessary) at times when financial exigencies necessitated such actions.

COLONIAL ISSUES

It has on occasion served the financial purposes of a number of governments throughout the world to separate some circulating notes either into halves or various-size segments, often overprinting them with inscriptions or different values, and recirculating the cut pieces as notes on their own. Such separating may have taken place before the establishment of the American Colonies; the earliest instance I have been able to locate where mention of this kind of activity, by Eric P. Newman.) Half and quarter sections were in use with independently proportional values given to them. Some notes even showed smaller values in each corner of a given note in anticipation of separation.