Last updated: September 2026

What is fractional currency?

Fractional currency is the family of United States banknotes worth less than a dollar, issued in five successive series between 1862 and 1876. The notes are small, roughly the size of a modern business card in the later issues, and they carried face values of 3, 5, 10, 15, 25 and 50 cents. Collectors sometimes call them shinplasters, a nineteenth-century insult that stuck.

They matter to American numismatics for a reason beyond their size. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing records that the fractional notes first issued in 1863 were "the first currency produced entirely at the Treasury Department," which makes this modest little series the beginning of the institution that prints every United States banknote today (Bureau of Engraving and Printing). For the full sweep of the country's paper money, see our history of US paper money.

Why did the United States print paper coins?

Because the coins were gone. In the second week of July 1862 hard money disappeared from American circulation. Silver and gold had already been hoarded, and with the channels of commerce full of paper bills even copper-nickel cents were pulled out of the market and kept (Q. David Bowers via CoinWeek).

People improvised at once. Merchants and towns printed their own scrip, usually in three and five cent denominations, and struck bronze tokens the size of a cent. On July 9, 1862 Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune suggested in print that ordinary postage stamps could pass as change if pasted to folded paper, and the idea spread into loose stamps sold in envelopes marked with a value. John Gault patented the neatest version, the encased postage stamp, a stamp sealed behind mica in a brass frame, and the merchants who advertised on the reverse of those cases are now a collecting field of their own (Stack's Bowers via CoinWeek).

The government followed the public. The Act of July 17, 1862 authorized official notes bearing postage stamp designs, and distribution began in August 1862 to Army paymasters before reaching the public in September. Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase and Treasurer Francis E. Spinner ran the program. It sat alongside the larger emergency issues of the same years: Congress had authorized Demand Notes in 1861 and United States Notes, the legal tender notes people called greenbacks, in 1862 (US Currency Education Program).

What is postage currency?

Postage currency is the first issue of fractional currency, printed between August 21, 1862 and May 27, 1863 in 5, 10, 25 and 50 cent denominations. The notes reproduce the postage stamps of the day rather than portraits chosen for money: the 5 cent shows the Jefferson stamp design and the 10 cent the Washington stamp design, with the 25 and 50 cent notes built from repeats of the same stamp designs.

Two collectible variations run through the issue. Early notes were perforated at the edges like a sheet of stamps and later ones were cut straight, and a second split turns on whether the back carries a printed monogram. Postage currency could be exchanged for United States Notes in five dollar lots and was receivable for payments due to the United States up to five dollars, which is the detail that separates it from the later issues.

What are the five issues of fractional currency?

Five issues ran in overlapping sequence from 1862 to 1876, each adding anti-counterfeiting measures the last one lacked. The table gives the dates, denominations and designs of each, along with the documented market evidence available for it.

Issue dates, denominations and design notes as documented in the standard references, with the second-issue Clark attribution taken from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the fifth-issue key varieties from CoinWeek. Unlike later United States notes, fractional currency has no grade-by-grade price guide published openly online, so this column gives documented results and relative scarcity rather than invented ranges.

Who was Spencer M. Clark, and why did his portrait cause an uproar?

Spencer M. Clark was the Chief Clerk of the Treasury Department's Bureau of Construction who, in 1862, obtained the presses for the Treasury's Loan Branch to overprint seals on notes. That put him at the origin of government printing. Two years later his own face appeared on the money.

Clark was not alone. Spinner, the Treasurer, and William P. Fessenden, a senator who became Treasury Secretary, were both living when their portraits went onto fractional notes. One casualty of the new rule is a collector favorite: plates for a 15 cent note showing William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant were finished on the day the law passed, and the note exists only as an unissued specimen.

What is the fractional currency shield?

The fractional currency shield is a display board, arranged in the shape of a heraldic shield, mounted with single-sided specimen notes of the issues then in circulation. The Treasury sold them to banks so tellers had a genuine standard to compare suspect notes against, which makes the shield an anti-counterfeiting tool rather than a souvenir.

Shields are the trophy item of the field. They were framed under glass and hung in banking halls rather than carried in pockets, which makes them a distinct collecting class from the notes themselves. The counterfeiting problem they addressed was serious enough that the United States Secret Service was established as a bureau of the Treasury in 1865 specifically to deter counterfeiters (Bureau of Engraving and Printing).

What is fractional currency worth?

Most fractional notes are affordable and a few are not, and the gap between them is variety rather than denomination. The common issues were printed in enormous numbers and survive in quantity, while a handful of varieties are known from only a few examples each. Face value tells you almost nothing about where a given note sits on that spread, which is why the catalog reference matters more here than in any other American series.

The documented top of the market illustrates how far a rare variety can travel. A note catalogued Fr. 1352, a 50 cent Justice note of the third issue and one of only three known, sold at public auction in 2004 for $126,500, a result recorded in Heritage Currency Auctions' Central States 2005 catalog (Ivy Press, 2005, page 65). Nothing in the common run of first and second issue notes comes close to that, and nothing should: those issues were printed in enormous numbers and survive in quantity, which is exactly why they make a good first purchase.

Four things move a fractional note's price:

• Variety, not denomination. A perforated first issue note, a scarce surcharge combination, an autographed signature pair on a third issue note, or a Long Key fifth issue 10 cent all outrank the face value printed on the paper.
• Grade. These notes are small, were handled hard, and are often found with rounded corners or trimmed margins. Our banknote grading guide and the PMG grading scale explain what separates a Fine from an Extremely Fine.
• Margins and centering. Fractional notes were cut by hand from sheets, so a well-centered example with four clear margins is genuinely uncommon and prices accordingly.
• Specimens and proofs. Single-sided specimens, including those taken from shields, trade as a separate market from issued notes.

How do you start collecting fractional currency?

Start with a type set: one note from each of the five issues. That single decision teaches the whole series, because the anti-counterfeiting measures change visibly from issue to issue, from plain postage stamp designs through bronze surcharges and fiber paper to watermarks, silk threads and color tinting. A type set is also the cheapest way in, since the common notes of the first, second and fourth issues are readily available.

From there the field splits. Some collectors chase the portrait set, which is a Civil War history lesson in its own right: Washington, Jefferson, Fessenden, Spinner, Lincoln, Stanton, Dexter, Meredith, Walker and Crawford. Others chase varieties inside a single issue, which is where catalog references earn their keep. If a note looks too clean or the margins look suspiciously perfect, read how to spot counterfeit banknotes before buying, and weigh certification using our comparison of graded versus raw banknotes.

Fractional currency sits beside two other Civil War series worth knowing. The greenbacks and legal tender notes were the dollar-and-up half of the same emergency, and Confederate currency is the other side of the war entirely.

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.