Last updated: September 2026

What was Confederate currency?

Confederate currency was the national paper money of the Confederate States of America, authorised by seven separate acts of the Confederate Congress between March 1861 and February 1864. Denominations ran from 50 cents to $1,000. Collectors catalogue the whole output as 72 major types, numbered T-1 through T-72.

The Confederate Congress authorised its first treasury notes on 9 March 1861, and further acts followed through to the seventh and final issue, authorised on 17 February 1864. None of the notes were redeemable in coin during the war. Instead each carried a deferred promise, and the 1864 issue read that the Confederate States would pay the bearer two years after the ratification of a treaty of peace between the Confederate States and the United States. The money's entire value rested on a Confederate victory.

Only the first notes came from a Northern firm. After Federal authorities stopped the National Bank Note Company of New York from printing for the Confederacy, the work moved to Southern contractors: Hoyer & Ludwig of Richmond, Keatinge & Ball of Richmond and later Columbia, South Carolina, Archer & Daly and Archer & Halpin of Richmond, and the Southern Bank Note Company of New Orleans. Wartime shortages of skilled engravers, quality paper and ink meant that much Confederate currency was crudely produced by the standards of the day, a weakness that counterfeiters exploited.

What were the seven Confederate issues?

Each Confederate issue was created by a specific act of Congress that set the amount authorised, the denominations and the terms of repayment. The seven issues are the backbone of the series, and knowing which act produced your note tells you most of what you need about its date and design family. The authorizing dates and denominations below follow the schedule set out in Pierre Fricke's reference Collecting Confederate Paper Money, and the terms of the seventh issue match the text of the Act of 17 February 1864 itself.

The seventh issue is the one most people own. It was printed in enormous quantity in the last fourteen months of the war, which is exactly why it is affordable today, and why it is the sensible place to start a type set.

How much is Confederate money worth today?

Common Confederate notes from the 1864 seventh issue trade for tens of dollars in circulated grades and low hundreds in uncirculated condition, while the 1861 Montgomery rarities run into five figures even when worn. Type, condition and eye appeal decide everything, so the chart below is organised by Criswell type and denomination.

The figures are catalogue values in US dollars from the PMG World Paper Money Price Guide, read in September 2026, at three points on the grading ladder: Very Good 8, Very Fine 20 and Uncirculated 60. The Criswell type numbers are the collector standard established by Grover Criswell and refined in Pierre Fricke's reference Collecting Confederate Paper Money; the Pick numbers in the next column are how PMG lists the same notes, so you can check any row yourself, from the 50 cent note at the bottom of the chart to the $500 note at the top.

The 1861 Montgomery notes sit in a different league, and PMG quotes them at different points on the scale: Good 4, Fine 12 and Extremely Fine 40.

Two cautions before you price your own note. Catalogue values are a reference point, not an offer, and a note's actual result depends on centring, colour, the presence of pinholes or edge splits and whether it has been certified. And within a single type there are dated varieties, series letters and plate letters that move the number: PMG's entry for the 1864 $20, for example, distinguishes notes without a series marking from those marked SERIES 1 to 5 and VI to XI. Our page on what determines banknote value covers the rest of the variables.

Why are the 1861 Montgomery notes the great rarities?

The first Confederate notes were issued at Montgomery, Alabama in 1861 in tiny recorded quantities: 607 each of the $500 and $1,000, and 1,606 each of the $50 and $100. Those four denominations, catalogued as T-1 through T-4, are the flagship rarities of the entire Confederate series.

Before the Confederate capital moved to Richmond, Treasury Secretary Christopher Memminger arranged a discreet printing contract, brokered by the Georgia businessman Gazaway Lamar, with the National Bank Note Company of New York. The firm engraved a single plate carrying one note of each denomination: $50, $100, $500 and $1,000. The notes bore interest at 3.65 per cent a year, and nearly all were hand-signed by Register Alex B. Clitherall and Treasurer E.C. Elmore. The $1,000, catalogued as T-1, pairs portraits of John C. Calhoun and Andrew Jackson, a description PMG's catalogue entry for the same note confirms.

Only a fraction of those small issues survives, and known examples are closely tracked in auction and census records. Even a heavily circulated Montgomery note ranks among the most valuable pieces of Confederate paper money, which is why every one of them belongs in a third-party holder before it changes hands.

Is my Confederate note real or a reproduction?

Start with the catalogue and then look at the signatures. Every genuine Confederate design matches one of the 72 catalogued types, with a documented printer imprint, and almost every note above 50 cents was signed in ink by hand. Souvenir reproductions, which are extremely common, carry printed signatures and printed serial numbers instead.

Four checks separate most genuine notes from the reproductions that circulate at flea markets and in old family albums.

• The signatures. Confederate treasury notes were hand-signed by clerks writing "for Register" and "for Treasurer", and the earliest issues were signed by the Register and Treasurer themselves. The 50 cent notes are the exception: PMG's catalogue entry for the 1864 50 cents records a printed signature and the imprint of Archer & Halpin. Because so many hands were involved, real ink varies in pressure, colour and slant from note to note.
• The serial numbers. Genuine notes carry hand-written serial numbers in the same ink and hand as the signatures. Identical printed serials across several notes are the clearest sign of a modern souvenir sheet.
• The edges. Confederate notes were cut apart from printed sheets, often with scissors, so genuine examples frequently show uneven margins. A perfectly even, machine-trimmed border on a supposedly wartime note is a warning.
• The printer imprint. Each type carries the imprint of the firm that produced it, such as Keatinge & Ball of Columbia, South Carolina on most of the 1864 issue, and the National Bank Note Company on the 1861 Montgomery notes. The imprint should match the type in the catalogue.

Two kinds of reproduction complicate the picture. The first are wartime facsimiles, above all those printed by Samuel C. Upham, and they are collectable in their own right. The second are modern souvenir reproductions on artificially aged, brittle paper, often sold in sets, which have no collector value and are the ones most people find in a drawer. Our guides to replicas and novelty notes and how to spot counterfeit banknotes go through the same checks for other countries.

How badly did Confederate money depreciate?

Prices in the eastern Confederacy rose more than ninety-fold in four years. The commodity price index built by the economic historian Eugene Lerner climbed from a base of 100 in January 1861 to over 9,000 by April 1865, a rate of inflation second in United States history only to the American Revolution.

The Confederacy financed its war with the printing press because it could not tax. According to Douglas Ball's 1991 study, cited by the EH.net Encyclopedia, taxes supplied only about 8.2 per cent of total Confederate revenues, debt issue about 32 per cent, and money printing nearly 60 per cent. Lerner's research found that the Confederate money supply increased 11.5 times between January 1861 and October 1864 while commodity prices increased 28 times over the same period, the gap being explained by rising velocity as people spent money as fast as they received it.

The government tried once to stop the slide. The Currency Reform Act of 1864 repudiated one third of the money supply outright, taking effect on 1 April 1864 east of the Mississippi River and on 1 July 1864 to the west. The effect on prices was short lived, because the Treasury restarted the presses in the autumn of 1864. For the wider pattern this fits, see our comparison of hyperinflation and ordinary inflation and the full ranking of every hyperinflation.

What happened to Confederate notes when the war ended?

They were never redeemed. With the Confederate government gone in April 1865, no issuer remained to honour the promise printed on the notes, and any lingering hope of repayment ended with the Fourteenth Amendment.

Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, states that neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States (National Archives). That closed the question for good. Many Southern families simply kept the notes as keepsakes of a hard period, which is one reason so much Confederate currency survives in collectable condition today.

How do collectors approach Confederate currency today?

Collectors organise the series by Criswell type, T-1 through T-72, and rely on condition and third-party grading to establish value. A type set of the 1864 seventh issue is the standard first project because every denomination in it survives in quantity.

The 72-type framework originated by the dealer and researcher Grover Criswell remains the backbone of the field, and Pierre Fricke's Collecting Confederate Paper Money refines it further with catalogued varieties. Both PMG and PCGS Banknote authenticate and grade Confederate notes on the standard 70-point scale, and our banknote grading guide explains how those grades translate into value while PMG versus PCGS compares the two services. Scarcer early types and the Montgomery rarities anchor advanced collections, and they belong with the most valuable United States banknotes in any serious American paper-money reference. Collected carefully, these notes are studied as primary documents of the Civil War era and of monetary history, not as memorabilia to celebrate.

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.