Old Money, It's Not Just Silver Certificates & Confederate Currency

    GREENVILLE, SC, September 11, 2013 /24-7PressRelease/ -- To non-collectors the world of old money typically breaks down as follows. There is modern money, silver certificates, and confederate currency. It seems like everyone's great uncle left him a $1 silver certificate and an 1864 confederate note. This has been going on long enough that the general public seems to think that there is nothing else out there and they try to box everything into one of those two categories. The world of collectible United States currency spans from 1690 to present day. There are lots of niche specialty areas for even novice collectors to explore.

Gold certificates, treasury notes, legal tender notes, obsolete notes, colonial currency, and national currency were all printed by The United States. The problem with those areas of paper money is that they can be very expensive. A complete set of any of the above notes would either cost millions of dollars or would be impossible to finish. Fortunately for beginning collectors there are other much cheaper but equally interesting types of old money. These are specifically fractional currency and military payment certificates.

Fractional currency values range from a few dollars to several hundred dollars for rarer or higher grade notes. There are more than 100 different varieties out there. However, there are only 24 different design types. A design type set can be bought for less than $2,000. That price point attracts new collectors. They are also very historical. Fractional currency circulated between 1863 and 1874. They were originally printed to replace coins due to metal hoarding during the Civil War.

Military payment certificates are equally historical. They were also issued to solve a problem. They were printed for use by soldiers on United States military bases overseas between 1946 and 1973. Despite no longer being legal tender, military payment certificate values range from a few dollars for common notes to a couple hundred dollars for the rarest examples. Those prices would be for specimens in heavily circulated condition. Most serious collectors of MPC tend to be veterans of the Korean War or the Vietnam War; so they actually used military payment certificates at their original time of issue. As the popularity of the specialty grows so will the collector base.

Want To Learn More About Currency?
It is easy to start collecting. Just buy a reference book and start reading. The time to educate yourself is before you starting buying. Don't box yourself into the traditional collecting areas. Learn what is out there and find something you like.

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