The American Bank Note Company: History, Engravers, Specimens and Collectible Notes
Formed in 1858 out of a merger of the leading American engraving houses, the American Bank Note Company printed the first paper money the United States federal government ever issued, then spent a century printing for the rest of the world. Its imprint sits in tiny type along the bottom border of notes from Brazil to Mexico to Cuba, and it is the one printer a collector can genuinely collect.
Founded 1858 1861 Demand Notes ABNC imprint Specimens and proofs
Last updated: September 2026
The American Bank Note Company was a New York security printer formed in 1858 by the merger of several leading American engraving firms. It printed the first federal United States paper money, the Demand Notes of 1861, lost that work when Congress gave the Treasury a monopoly in 1877, and turned instead to currency, stamps and stock certificates for dozens of countries.
What was the American Bank Note Company?
The American Bank Note Company, usually abbreviated ABNC or ABN, was a New York security printer that engraved and printed banknotes, postage stamps, bonds and stock certificates. It was the dominant American engraving house of the nineteenth century and a major currency printer for other countries well into the twentieth.
Its commercial position came from a single technical asset: steel engraving. Before photography and offset, a banknote's security lived in the hand of the engraver who cut the portrait and in the geometric lathe work around it, and the firms that held the best engravers held the contracts. When those firms combined, the result was a company that could out-engrave anybody in the Americas. Its own successor still describes the business as one whose predecessors "have printed security documents for over 200 years" (American Banknote Corporation annual report on Form 10-K, filed with the SEC in March 1998).
For a collector the practical difference between ABNC and a modern printer like De La Rue is visibility. Modern notes rarely carry a printer imprint. ABNC's work usually does, spelled out along the bottom border, which makes it one of the few printers you can collect deliberately rather than by inference. The wider field is mapped in who prints the world's money.
How was the company formed in 1858?
The American Bank Note Company was created in 1858 when several of the leading American security printing firms merged, among them Rawdon, Wright, Hatch and Edson and Danforth, Perkins and Company. The merger consolidated a fragmented industry and made the new company the primary producer of banknotes in the United States.
That fragmentation is worth picturing. Before the Civil War the United States had no single national paper currency. Thousands of state chartered banks issued their own notes, each design commissioned from whichever engraving house they could reach, and counterfeiters thrived in the confusion. Engraving firms competed on vignettes, and a bank's note was as much a marketing object as a financial instrument. Our guide to National Bank Notes covers what replaced that system.
The lineage runs back further than 1858. ABCorp, the company that carries the American Bank Note name today, dates its origins to 1795 and a Philadelphia firm formed by Robert Scot, the first Chief Engraver of the United States Mint, together with three partners, which specialised in engraving stock certificates, bonds and banknotes for state chartered banks (ABCorp company history). By the late nineteenth century, the same account says, the company was printing currency and secure documents for more than 40 countries.
Did the American Bank Note Company print US currency?
Yes, and it printed the first of it. The Demand Notes of 1861, the first paper currency issued by the United States government, were printed by the American Bank Note Company of New York and sent to the Treasury in sheets of four, where dozens of clerks separated and trimmed them by hand before issue.
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing records the detail in its own history fact sheet on Demand Notes, which also explains why the improvisation went further: the notes were meant to be hand signed by the Register and the Treasurer, an impossibility once four to five million had to go out in a matter of months, so Treasury clerks were designated to sign on their behalf (Bureau of Engraving and Printing, BEP History Fact Sheet: Demand Notes). Those notes are the subject of our page on greenbacks and Legal Tender Notes.
The private printers did not lose federal currency work overnight. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing began engraving and printing the faces and seals of United States banknotes in 1869; before that, notes were produced by private banknote companies and sent to the Bureau only for sealing, trimming and cutting. Congress recognised the Bureau with its own appropriation for fiscal 1875, and in 1877 mandated that the Treasury alone would engrave and print the notes, bonds and other securities of the United States (US Currency Education Program).
That 1877 mandate is the hinge of the company's history. A firm built to supply American banks and the American government was cut off from both within a generation, first by the National Banking Acts and then by the Treasury monopoly. What saved it was export: stamps, stock certificates, and above all currency for governments across Latin America and beyond.
American Bank Note Company timeline
The dates below come from the company's own successor, from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, from the US Currency Education Program and from filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Together they trace 200 years from a Philadelphia engraving shop to a card and document business.
| Year | Event | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1795 | ABCorp dates the lineage to a Philadelphia firm formed by Robert Scot, first Chief Engraver of the US Mint, with three partners | The origin the successor company claims, engraving for state chartered banks before any national currency existed |
| 1851 | The predecessor firms begin printing stock certificates | The second business line, and the one that outlasted currency |
| 1858 | Merger of leading security printers, including Rawdon, Wright, Hatch and Edson and Danforth, Perkins and Company, creates the American Bank Note Company | Consolidates the industry and makes ABNC the primary US banknote producer |
| 1861 | ABNC prints the Demand Notes, the first paper currency issued by the United States government | The first federal paper money, delivered in sheets of four for hand finishing at the Treasury |
| 1869 | The Bureau of Engraving and Printing begins engraving and printing note faces and seals itself | The first step in removing private printers from federal currency |
| 1877 | Congress mandates that the Treasury alone engrave and print United States notes, bonds and securities | ABNC loses federal currency work and pivots to export markets |
| 1891 | ABNC begins printing United States Treasury bonds | Federal work returns in a different form |
| 1935 | ABNC engravers cut the portraits for the Bank of Canada's first banknote series | Named engravers on a national series, documented note by note by the Bank of Canada Museum |
| 1993 to 1997 | Holding company incorporated in Delaware as United States Banknote Corporation, renamed American Banknote Corporation on 1 July 1995; acquisitions in Brazil, Australia, New Zealand and France follow | Currency becomes one product line among cards, holograms and document services |
| December 1999 | The parent company files for reorganisation under Chapter 11 in the Southern District of New York; the plan is confirmed in November 2000 | No subsidiary was a party, and the operating businesses continued through the reorganisation |
Sources: ABCorp for 1795, 1851, 1858 and 1891; Bureau of Engraving and Printing for 1861; uscurrency.gov for 1869 and 1877; Bank of Canada Museum for 1935; and American Banknote Corporation's Form 10-K filed with the SEC in April 2002 for the 1990s and the Chapter 11 dates.
Who were the American Bank Note Company's engravers?
ABNC's engravers are named in museum records rather than on the notes. The Bank of Canada Museum credits three of them by name across the 1935 Canadian series: Robert Savage, Edwin Gunn and Will Ford, each cutting a specific portrait from a specific source photograph.
Robert Savage of the American Bank Note Company engraved King George V's portrait for the Canadian 1 dollar note of 1935, working from a photograph supplied by Lafayette Ltd of London (Bank of Canada Museum). Will Ford engraved Sir John A. Macdonald for the 500 dollar note, after an 1883 photograph by William James Topley of Ottawa (Bank of Canada Museum). Edwin Gunn engraved Sir Wilfrid Laurier for the 1,000 dollar note, from a photograph in the Public Archives of Canada whose photographer is unknown (Bank of Canada Museum).
The clearest single example of the division of labour is Canada's 25 dollar note of 1935, a commemorative for King George V's Silver Jubilee and the only Canadian government note ever issued in that denomination or colour. Gunn engraved the King. Ford engraved Queen Mary. Both worked for the American Bank Note Company, while the note itself was printed by the Canadian Bank Note Company (Bank of Canada Museum). That split, ABNC engraving and a local firm printing, is common on colonial and Commonwealth issues and a good reason not to read a printer's imprint as the whole story. Our guide to Canadian banknote history follows the series, and intaglio engraving explains what the burin actually does.
Which world banknotes did ABNC print?
ABNC's export work ran across the Americas and beyond. The clearest way to confirm a specific note is the imprint or a catalogue attribution, and the table below lists issues where an ABNC attribution is recorded, along with the source of that attribution.
| Country | Note | Years | How the attribution is recorded |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Demand Notes, 5, 10 and 20 dollars | 1861 to 1862 | Named as the printer in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing's own history fact sheet |
| Brazil | 1 mil réis, Pick 5, Estampa 9A | Undated, circa 1917 | ABNC attribution carried in the Planet Banknote catalogue listing |
| Mexico | Banco del Estado de Chihuahua 50 pesos, the "train note", Pick S135a | 1913 | ABNC attribution carried in the Planet Banknote catalogue listing |
| Mexico | Banco de la República Mexicana 50 and 100 pesos specimen set | 1918 | ABNC attribution carried in the Planet Banknote catalogue listing |
| Mexico | Banco de México 500 pesos, Morelos, Pick 51 | 1961 to 1972 | ABNC attribution carried in the Planet Banknote catalogue listing |
| Cuba | Banco Nacional de Cuba 100 pesos, Pick 82a | 1950 | ABNC attribution carried in the Planet Banknote catalogue listing |
| Germany | Bank deutscher Länder 10 Deutsche Mark | 1949 | ABNC attribution carried in the Planet Banknote catalogue listing |
| India | Currency printed for the Reserve Bank of India at the company's Columbia, Tennessee plant | Reported in 1997 | Disclosed in American Banknote Corporation's SEC annual report for 1997 |
Availability changes with inventory, so treat the catalogue rows as evidence that ABNC printed for those countries rather than as a stock list. Country pages are the practical route in: Brazil, Mexico, Cuba and Germany all have ABNC connected issues, and the 1949 Bank deutscher Länder note belongs to the story told in the 1948 German currency reform.
What are ABNC specimen and proof notes?
A specimen is a finished, genuine note set aside for reference instead of released, usually overprinted or perforated SPECIMEN with zeroed serial numbers. A proof is an earlier stage: a trial impression pulled to check an engraving before the design was approved. ABNC produced both in quantity, and both survive in collections.
Specimens exist because a printer and its customer needed a physical reference copy. Central banks exchanged them so a genuine note could be recognised abroad, and printers kept them as records of what they had produced. Because they were never spent, they tend to reach collectors in the condition they left the press, which is exactly why they command a premium. The full explainer is on our specimen notes page.
Proofs are the engraver's evidence. A face proof, a back proof or a vignette proof on card is a direct artefact of the plate making stage described in how banknotes are printed, and for a printer as engraving led as ABNC they are the closest thing to seeing the work in progress. The American Numismatic Society's collection database returns over 1,100 records associated with the American Bank Note Company, including vignette proofs mounted on card (American Numismatic Society collection search).
What happened to the American Bank Note Company?
The banknote business became one line inside a diversified group. By the 1990s the parent, American Banknote Corporation, ran subsidiaries in the United States, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand and France, selling transaction cards, holograms and document services alongside security printing. In December 1999 the parent filed for reorganisation under Chapter 11.
The shape of the 1990s business is documented in the company's own SEC filings. The holding company was incorporated in Delaware in 1993 as United States Banknote Corporation and renamed American Banknote Corporation on 1 July 1995. Its Brazilian subsidiary, American Bank Note Company Grafica e Servicos, was 77.5 percent owned. Foreign markets accounted for about 73 percent of consolidated sales in 1997. The group was by then the world's leading supplier of transaction card holograms, having produced over six billion of them, while security printing accounted for just under half of sales (Form 10-K filed March 1998).
The reorganisation was narrower than it sounds. The parent alone filed the Chapter 11 petition in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York in December 1999, the court confirmed the plan in November 2000, and none of the subsidiaries was ever a party: each continued to operate on a stand alone basis (Form 10-K filed April 2002). The name survives today with ABCorp, which describes itself as a card, payments and additive manufacturing business rather than a currency printer.
How do you collect American Bank Note Company notes?
Collect by imprint. Look along the bottom border of the face and the back for AMERICAN BANK NOTE CO., AMERICAN BANK NOTE COMPANY or ABNC in small capitals, sometimes with NEW YORK after it. Where the imprint is missing, rely on the catalogue attribution and the seller's description rather than on the design alone.
Three practical points. First, decide whether you want issued notes, specimens or proofs, because they are three different markets with three different price ladders. Second, condition drives value here as everywhere: an ABNC note in Uncirculated preserves the engraving detail that is the whole point of the printer, and our grading guide explains the ladder. Third, certified examples remove the attribution argument, since third party grading labels record the printer when the note carries an imprint; the tradeoffs are in graded versus raw banknotes.
Start with a country whose story interests you rather than with the printer. The Brazil collection is a good entry point for early ABNC export work, and the wider banknotes by country index is where the Mexican, Cuban and German issues live. If catalogue shorthand like Estampa or Pick is unfamiliar, the Pick number guide and the banknote glossary decode it.
Planet Banknote is a family-owned dealership in Sarasota, Florida, founded in 2021. Every note is sourced direct from mints, central banks, and authorized distributors, inspected through our Planet Banknote Verified process, and ships with a free Certificate of Authenticity. US orders ship free via USPS Priority, and every order includes a free bonus gift.
Frequently asked questions
When was the American Bank Note Company founded?
The American Bank Note Company was formed in 1858 by the merger of several leading American security printing firms, among them Rawdon, Wright, Hatch and Edson and Danforth, Perkins and Company. Its successor company traces the lineage further back, to a Philadelphia engraving firm of 1795 formed by Robert Scot, the first Chief Engraver of the United States Mint, with three partners.
Did the American Bank Note Company print United States money?
Yes. It printed the Demand Notes of 1861, the first paper currency issued by the United States government. According to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the notes were sent to the Treasury in sheets of four, where dozens of clerks separated and trimmed them by hand. Congress ended private printing of federal currency in 1877 by giving the Treasury the sole right to engrave and print it.
What does ABNC mean on a banknote?
ABNC is the standard abbreviation for the American Bank Note Company, and it appears in dealer and catalogue descriptions as a printer attribution. On the note itself the imprint is usually spelled out in small capitals along the bottom border of the face or the back, sometimes with the words NEW YORK following the company name.
Which countries used American Bank Note Company banknotes?
ABNC printed for many countries after it lost United States federal currency work in 1877. Attributions recorded in the Planet Banknote catalogue include Brazil, Mexico, Cuba and Germany, and the company's own SEC filings describe currency printed for the Reserve Bank of India in the 1990s. Its successor company says the business was printing for more than 40 countries by the late nineteenth century.
What is an American Bank Note Company specimen note?
It is a genuine, fully printed note that was set aside for reference rather than issued, usually overprinted or perforated SPECIMEN and carrying zeroed or sample serial numbers. Central banks exchanged specimens so genuine notes could be recognised abroad, and printers kept them as production records. Because they never circulated, they often survive in pristine condition.
Who engraved the portraits on American Bank Note Company notes?
Named engravers are recorded in museum catalogues rather than on the notes. The Bank of Canada Museum credits three ABNC engravers on the 1935 Canadian series: Robert Savage, who cut King George V for the 1 dollar note, Will Ford, who cut Sir John A. Macdonald for the 500 dollar note, and Edwin Gunn, who cut Sir Wilfrid Laurier for the 1,000 dollar note.
Does the American Bank Note Company still exist?
The name survives, but not as a currency printer. The parent holding company filed for reorganisation under Chapter 11 in December 1999 and had its plan confirmed in November 2000, while its operating subsidiaries continued to trade throughout. The business now trades as ABCorp and describes itself as a card, payments and additive manufacturing company.