DALLAS, TX.- One of just six known examples of America’s first Gold Certificate will become an undeniable treasure for the winning bidder when it is sold in Heritage’s January 10-12 FUN Currency Signature® Auction.

The Fr. 1166b-I $20 1863 Gold Certificate PMG Very Fine 25 that will be up for grabs is one of just four in private hands. Within paper currency, there are some major design types that far outweigh the rarity of many numismatic trophies, and the Series 1863 Gold Certificates are a prime example.

“These were the first Gold Certificates printed and issued,” says Dustin Johnston, Vice President of Numismatics at Heritage Auctions. “The vast majority of them were redeemed for physical gold, making the survivors unquestioned rarities. Now just four $20 notes and a single $100 are available to collectors. The $100 was offered by Heritage Auctions in 2013 and brought more than $2.1 million.”

Because they were backed by gold on deposit with the Treasury, the 1863 Gold Certificates were meant to bring some stability to interbank trading. But Treasury records and dates on the notes show that 48,000 1863 $20 Gold Certificates were printed and issued between 1865 and 1869.

The example offered in this auction has spent the better part of a quarter century in private hands, and has not been offered publicly since 2000; the other three privately held examples all have been offered since, the last reaching the market nearly five years ago. In terms of importance, it ranks among the rarest and most desirable United States bank notes in existence.

A significant 20th-century grade rarity is a Fr. 2407 $500 1928 Gold Certificate. PMG Gem Uncirculated 66 EPQ that carries the highest grade of any example graded by PMG. Once a part of the Tom Flynn holdings and later the Greensboro Collection, this note — an unquestioned prize from Part 1 of the Highland Park Collection of Small Size US Currency, considered among the finest small-size collections of Federal Reserve Bank Notes, Gold Certificates, Silver Certificates, Legal Tenders and World War II Emergency Notes ever assembled — is the only small size $500 Gold graded by PMG to earn a Gem Uncirculated grade, a status it has held since at least 2008. So expansive is the Highland Park Collection that its treasures will be spread throughout multiple future auctions, Part 1 featuring the high-denomination Federal Reserve Notes and Gold Certificates.

Also part of the Highland Park Collection is a wholly original 1928 Atlanta $5,000 — one of just three 1928 $5,000s to earn the Exceptional Paper Quality descriptor; while examples from this district top out in the Extremely Fine grades at the grading services, no others have earned that EPQ designation. The quality is exceptional for any $5,000, but especially for a Series 1928.

There is exactly one privately held example of a Fr. 1191 $50 1882 Large Red Seal Gold Certificate, and it is up for grabs in this auction. Just four examples of this important type are known, which fuels the note’s outstanding pedigree, and the example that will be offered in this auction is the nicest of the four — the others are housed in the Smithsonian, and in the San Francisco and New York Federal Reserve Collections. The large red seal is of critical importance on this note, and is part of the reason it might end up as one of the most important U.S. banknotes offered in 2024.

Large denomination notes have enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity in recent years, a surge that should be reflected in a Fr. 2231-B $10,000 1934 Federal Reserve Note. PMG Choice Uncirculated 64. The so-called “Benny Binion 1934 $10,000,” this magnificent note was one of the $1 million in paper money assembled by Binion for display in his Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas. This note was joined by 99 others framed beneath an oversized horseshoe in the casino.

Few banknotes are unique, but when it comes to a Fr. 1219b $1,000 1907 Gold Certificate PMG Very Fine 25 that will be offered in the auction, that claim is no exaggeration. This note was unknown until it appeared at auction in 1990 as part of the Jim Thompson Collection. Heritage Auctions first offered this note in February 2005 as part of the Taylor Family Collection, and it has been offered three more times since then through Heritage: in September 2008, in January 2013 and in January 2014. Not a single example has been offered since then, and there are no known examples in government collections.

A Fr. 212 $50 1864 Interest Bearing Note PMG Very Fine 20 is one of just seven known, with this example making its first auction appearance ever, and is the only example that was fully redeemed but still in public hands. All of the interest coupons were redeemed, and the back bears the endorsement of the bearer, John Green, from when it was presented for redemption. While considered “instruments,” they were, in fact, circulating notes, printed and issued to raise money to fund the Union’s fight in the Civil War. Though cancelled, this note is an important part of Civil War numismatic history, which was poorly researched and chronicled until this year, in Nicholas J. Bruyer’s recently published United States Treasury Notes 1812-1865: An Illustrated History, a definitive work explaining the beginning and evolution of Treasury notes.