Last updated: September 2026

What is a silver certificate?

A silver certificate is a United States banknote issued against silver held by the Treasury, payable to the bearer in silver on demand. Congress created the class with the Bland-Allison Act of February 28, 1878, which it passed over a presidential veto, and the Treasury began issuing the certificates that year (US Currency Education Program).

The economic logic was simple. The 1878 act obliged the Treasury to buy large quantities of silver and strike it into dollars, and a silver dollar is a heavy coin that nobody wanted to carry in quantity. Paper certificates let the metal sit in a vault while a lighter claim on it circulated. That made silver certificates a different animal from the greenback: a United States Note was a direct obligation of the government, while a silver certificate was a receipt for metal. Our guide to greenbacks and legal tender notes covers the other side of that split, and gold certificates are the parallel series backed by bullion rather than silver.

How do you identify a silver certificate?

Read the blue seal first, then the wording above the portrait. Every small-size silver certificate issued from 1928 onward carries a blue Treasury seal and blue serial numbers, and the top of the face reads SILVER CERTIFICATE rather than FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE. Large-size issues used red or brown seals before the blue seal arrived with the Series of 1899.

Four checks settle it in seconds:

• Seal and serial color. Blue on small-size notes. Green means a Federal Reserve Note, red means a United States Note.
• The heading. The words SILVER CERTIFICATE run across the top of the face.
• The obligation. The face states that the amount is payable to the bearer on demand in silver.
• Wartime exceptions. A brown seal with HAWAII overprinted front and back, or a yellow seal, marks a Second World War emergency issue rather than an ordinary note. See Hawaii overprint notes.

What is a silver certificate worth by series and grade?

Most silver certificates are worth single-digit dollars and a handful are worth thousands, and the dividing line is almost always the series rather than the denomination. CoinWeek's overview of the class puts the common ground plainly: Series 1935 and 1957 notes are generally worth less than $5 circulated and as much as a couple of hundred dollars in high grades, while the 1886 Martha Washington $1 runs from around $225 in average condition to about $3,000 for an uncirculated example of the scarcest variety, and the 1899 eagle type from around $100 in average condition to over $6,000 for an MS 63 example of the rarest issue (CoinWeek).

The first table below is the identification key: each major series with its seal, its portrait or central vignette, and what a collector is actually paying for. The second gives dated results for specific certified notes, which is the only kind of figure this page quotes.

Results as reported by CoinWeek for the Series 1933 $10, the 1899 $5 Running Antelope and the 1923 Porthole $5. The 1933 results were achieved at Stack's Bowers. This page does not publish a grade-by-grade price guide for the whole series, because the guides that compile one are produced by firms that also sell the notes. Read a single documented result as evidence about that note in that grade on that date, not as a valuation of yours: centering, paper quality, signature combination and certification move individual notes a long way.

What are the large-size silver certificates of 1878 to 1923?

Large-size silver certificates measure about 7.375 by 3.125 inches, roughly a third bigger than a modern bill, and they ran from the first Series of 1878 to the last Series of 1923. Four of those series carry designs that collectors chase on artistic merit alone.

The 1896 Educational Series

The Educational Series is the most admired paper money the United States has produced. The Treasury commissioned three painters in 1893: Will H. Low drew History Instructing Youth for the $1 (Fr. 224), Edwin H. Blashfield drew Science Presenting Steam and Electricity to Industry and Commerce for the $2 (Fr. 248), and Walter Shirlaw drew Electricity Presenting Light to the World for the $5 (Fr. 268). The backs were engraved by a Bureau of Engraving and Printing team under Chief Engraver Thomas F. Morris (CoinWeek).

The 1899 Black Eagle $1 and the Running Antelope $5

The Series 1899 $1, catalogued Fr. 236 and known as the Black Eagle, puts a bald eagle with outstretched wings over an American flag with the Capitol behind it, and small portraits of Lincoln and Grant below (CoinWeek). Its $5 companion is one of very few United States notes to carry the portrait of a named Native American. Running Antelope, a Hunkpapa Lakota leader who signed the second Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868, was photographed by Alexander Gardner in Washington in 1872, and George F. C. Smillie engraved the portrait in November 1899, replacing the three-feather headdress in the photograph with a large warbonnet so the image would fit the frame. The design stayed on the $5 until Lincoln replaced it in 1923. CoinWeek records PCGS Gem New 66 PPQ examples at $6,600 in January and April 2018 and a Gem New 67 PPQ at $22,912.50 in August 2017 (CoinWeek).

The 1923 Lincoln Porthole $5

The final large-size $5, Fr. 282, frames Lincoln inside a heavy circle that collectors read as a ship's window, which is where the Porthole nickname comes from. Charles Burt engraved the portrait from an 1864 photograph by Anthony Berger. The Bureau printed 6,316,000 of them, the first Treasury delivery came on August 7, 1924, the last serial numbering ran on March 12, 1926, and about 5,000 are thought to survive in all grades. Recent results include a PMG Gem Uncirculated 65 EPQ at $10,370 in January 2026 and a PMG Choice Very Fine 35 at $2,928 in June 2026 (CoinWeek).

What are the small-size silver certificates of 1928 to 1957?

Small-size silver certificates began with Series 1928, after the 1929 standardization reduced every United States note to about 6.14 by 2.61 inches and fixed one portrait per denomination (US Currency Education Program). Washington took the $1, Lincoln the $5 and Hamilton the $10, and all of them wear the blue seal.

The Series 1928 and 1934 $1 notes are nicknamed Funnybacks for the pale green ink and oversized ONE on the reverse. Series 1935 ran through eight letter varieties, A to H, and Series 1935G was the point at which IN GOD WE TRUST began appearing on the back partway through the run. The motto arrived on United States paper with the 1957 $1 silver certificate, following 1955 legislation, before it reached Federal Reserve Notes with the Series 1963 (US Currency Education Program). Series 1957, 1957A and 1957B were the last $1 silver certificates printed; the $5 and $10 ended with Series 1953B.

Which silver certificates are genuinely rare?

Three small-size types account for most of the real money in the series, and none of them is rare because it is old. Each was an interrupted or deliberately limited printing.

The Series 1933 $10, Fr. 1700, is the headline. The Bureau printed 216,000, destroyed 60,000 and issued 156,000 before Series 1934 replaced it, and roughly 100 are known across all grades today. Stack's Bowers sold a PCGS 67 PPQ example for $99,000 on March 23, 2023, a PMG 67 EPQ for $105,750 on August 10, 2016, and a PMG 65 EPQ for $38,400 on August 24, 2022 (CoinWeek).

The Series 1935A experimental notes are the second. During the Second World War the Bureau tested regular and synthetic paper stock and marked the test notes with a small red R or S beside the serial number. They are ordinary-looking $1 bills with an extra letter, and the scarcity is in the numbers: exactly 2,368,000 were produced, split evenly into 1,184,000 R notes and 1,184,000 S notes, released on June 20, 1944. That is under 1 percent of all Series 1935A notes, and Paper Money Guaranty considers the survivors scarce (Paper Money Guaranty via CoinWeek).

The third is Series 1928E, a scarce signature combination on an otherwise common $1 type. That is the lesson of the whole series compressed into one row: the denomination is a label, the exact series and signature pair is the price.

Do silver certificate star notes carry a premium?

Yes, and the size of the premium depends on the series rather than on the star itself. A star note is a replacement printed to stand in for a sheet spoiled during production, and it is identified by a star printed before or after the serial number rather than a suffix letter.

Because replacements were printed in far smaller quantities than the notes they replaced, a star on a common Series 1935 or 1957 $1 adds a modest premium, while a star on an already scarce series such as 1928E or a wartime emergency issue can multiply the price. Published star pricing is thin for pre-1963 silver certificates, so this is one area where recent sold results matter more than any guide. Our page on star notes and replacement notes explains how to read the serials and where the scarce blocks sit.

Why did silver certificates end, and can you still redeem one?

Silver certificates ended because the Treasury ran out of reason to hold the silver behind them. As industrial and coinage demand pushed the metal's market price up through the early 1960s, the certificates became a cheap way to draw silver out of government vaults. Treasury Secretary C. Douglas Dillon announced in March 1964 that silver certificates would no longer be paid out in silver dollars, redemption continued in silver granules for a further period, and that window closed in 1968 (CoinWeek). Congress had already prohibited the redemption of currency for gold in 1963 (US Currency Education Program).

A silver certificate today is still United States currency and still spends at face value, but it cannot be exchanged for metal. That is why the collector market, not the silver market, sets the price. For the wider picture of how condition converts scarcity into money, read our banknote grading guide and the PMG grading scale, and compare certified and uncertified buying in graded versus raw banknotes. Where silver certificates sit among the biggest American results is covered in the most valuable United States banknotes.

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.