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Want Something Unusual To Collect? Confederacy’s War Bond Could Be Just The Thing
Anyone who knows anything about history is aware that Confederate turned to dust financially speaking long before the conclusion of the Civil War, so much so that southerners were reduced to burning it for warmth or covering wall cracks with it. Today, though, Confederate money is highly collectible. Confederate bonds are even more so.
The Richmond government desiredmoney for the war–indeed, for its very viability. Therefore, it resorted to what national treasuries have often done in modern days: it printed and sold bonds. These constituted promises to repay, at a later date and with interest, the loan that a citizen or other “investor” had made in the Confederate States.
It goes without saying that most of the Confederate bond purchasers were not repaid, and the bonds that did not end up destroyed or lost were tucked away in attics and other hidden places.
Nowadays, the bonds that survived these many decades are prized by collectors. And, you can turn around and sell Confederate bonds (and other paper collectibles) in the online auction market for an excellent profit.
The southern nation’s bonds may be enjoyed as decorative items (if framed, they should be matted using museum type material to prevent damage; reflectionless picture-frame glass is also a good idea, even with the additional cost.
The Confederacy promulgated a fairly large number of bond issues throughout the course of the conflict. For every issue, various “denominations” (that is, the certificate’s face value) were sold. These all had different decorations, and often even different pape colors, to distinguish them one from the other.
Collectors are fascinated with the vignettes, or illustrations, seen on the different CSA bonds. Some of these included an mythological male figure propped on an elbow, with charts and a world globe; a locomotive with a sailing ship in the background; a a paddle-wheeled steamer; a seaman brandishing a Confederate flag while resting a bale of cotton; and the Confederacy’s president Jefferson Davis surrounded by cannon and flags.
A typical example would be the $1,000 face-value Confederate bond that I bought and put in a frame several years ago. It is gorgeous, with words printed in elaborate italic script and, most prominently, a vignette of the southern hero Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. You probably know that Jackson was sent to his reward in the midst of the war after accidentally being shot by a Rebel soldier during the Battle of Chancellorsville. He was a southern hero, and it was only natural that his image would come to be looking out from the Confederacy’s bonds.
Many Confederate bond issues were in fact sold abroad, particularly in Britain, and not to the increasingly devastated people of the South. My “Stonewall” bond was found in a hoard discovered in England in the 1980s. Such hoards turn up occasionally, pushing prices downward in the collectibles market, but the dip is usually short lived. Lately I’ve learned that Stonewall Jacksons are now difficult to find, so I’m very glad that I was able to acquire one at the time I did.
If your interest in Confederate bonds extends to more than merely holding on to and admiring their peculiar beauty and historical aura, you will discover them to be a wonderful front door into scripophily. This is the hobby of collecting old financial certificates, which often includes bank instruments, stock certificates, railroad bonds and the like.
If you are interested in exploring this subject further, you can find books, as well as free information on the Web pertaining to CSA bonds. Learn a lot about their history and then attend coin shows where some of the dealers sometimes have them for sale. If you’re just interested in the art aspect, you can pick up one or two of the more common issues relatively inexpensively. If you are interested in trading for profit or as a business, naturally you must learn much more about these bonds, their different issues and how to evaluate their condition, and be ready for the give-and-take of haggling with other knowledgeable dealers.
Now, leave it to an enterprising British woman to become the world’s authority on making good money–even earning one’s living–selling pieces of American paper, not only old money and bonds but even pages torn out from old magazines. You can read more about her surprising eBay paper selling method here.
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