The Aldrich-Vreeland Emergency Currency Act in force between 1908 and 1915 led to the issuance of the date back national bank notes in both the Series of 1882 and 1902. However, when the act expired, the date back nationals continued to be printed. Existing and newly printed stocks of the date backs continued to be sent to the banks until they were exhausted.
The most interesting and probably most convoluted of the post-act printings involved the lightly used Series of 1882 10-10-10-10 plates. We’ll take a look at the changeover from those date back to value back printings.
The Aldrich-Vreeland Act was passed July 1, 1908 in order to provide a degree of elasticity into the national bank note money supply. Under its terms, bankers could deposit municipal bonds and certain forms of commercial paper to secure additional issuances of national bank notes if they had a need for a short-term boost to their circulations above their traditional bond-secured circulation.
One of the terms of the Aldrich-Vreeland Act was that national bank notes issued after its passage had to carry a security clause that acknowledged that the notes were backed in part by a lower class of paper than United States bonds. This gave rise to the “or other securities” clause on their faces. All banks got notes with
