Chronology of Large-Size Notes

These tables list the major types and series of currency issued by the United States before 1928, together with the terms of office of the Treasury officials who signed them. In 1928, the dimensions of all notes were reduced; therefore, these issues of the period 1861-1928 are often referred to as "large-size" currency. Most of these notes were signed by the Register of the Treasury and the U.S. Treasurer; a few of the later notes were signed by the Secretary of the Treasury instead of the Register.

Notice that the series date on the large-size notes usually was changed only when a design was changed in some way, not each time a new signature appeared. Therefore, it was not uncommon for a single series date to be used for as long as twenty or thirty years. Also, currency designs were changed considerably more often in the past than they are today, and often not all denominations were redesigned at the same time. Thus it was also not unusual for various series dated across several decades to be in production simultaneously.

For information on series dated 1928 and later, see the chronology of small-size note issues.

Notes signed by the Register and Treasurer

The earliest issues of National Bank Notes had no series date. These notes are designated in the table by "n.d." (no date) for the series year.

Two minor note types are not included in the table: National Gold Bank Notes, hybrids of National Bank Notes and Gold Certificates, were issued in denominations of $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, and $500, variously dated between 1870 and 1875, and signed by Register Allison and Treasurer Spinner. Currency Certificates denominated $5000 and $10000 were dated 1872 and 1875, but were issued as late as 1900, and were signed by many of the Registers and Treasurers in office during the intervening years.

Notes signed by the Treasurer and Secretary

Of all the large-size notes, only these first two series of Federal Reserve Notes were signed by the Secretary of the Treasury. Not until the changeover to small-size currency in Series 1928 did the Secretary's signature replace the Register's on most other note types.

Other notes

A few early notes do not fit into the above categories:

• The Demand Notes of 1861, the first U.S. federal currency issued for circulation, were hand-signed by various Treasury Department employees rather than bearing printed signatures. These individuals signed their own names, over the printed words "for the Register" or "for the Treasurer". Notes were issued in denominations of $5, $10, and $20.
• Various types of interest-bearing notes were issued from 1812 to 1879. The earlier issues were not intended to circulate as currency; indeed, they are often considerably larger than the "large-size" circulating notes. Nonetheless, some of these notes did circulate, and the later issues were in fact designed to do so, being generally the same size as regular currency. The early issues were signed by various U.S. officials; by the 1860s the signatures of the Register and Treasurer had become standard. Many of the earlier issues did not have standardised denominations, but could be issued in whatever amount the purchaser chose. Circulation issues were printed in denominations from $10 to $5000.
• Five separate issues of Fractional Currency were produced between 1862 and 1876, to offset a shortage of circulating coins during and immediately after the Civil War. These notes were not "large-size" currency either, being substantially smaller than even our modern notes. The first two issues bore no signatures at all; they resembled postage stamps more than true currency. The other three issues had designs more typical of the currency of the era, and were signed by the Register and Treasurer. Only the last issue carried a series date, either 1874 or 1875 depending upon the denomination. The various issues included different mixes of denominations:
  
  
     

  Fifth issue 10¢ fractional

  Issue	Denominations
  First		5¢	10¢		25¢	50¢
  Second		5¢	10¢		25¢	50¢
  Third	3¢	5¢	10¢		25¢	50¢
  Fourth			10¢	15¢	25¢	50¢
  Fifth			10¢		25¢	50¢

  Additionally, the third and fourth issues each included three different designs of 50¢ notes.