It’s been a staple of various movies and TV shows wherein characters are frantically trying to discover a priceless family treasure only to have it be a chest filled with stacks of worthless Confederate cash.
My question is, when exactly did Confederate money become worthless? I highly doubt it lost its value the moment the war ended, which would have bankrupted the entire South. Was there a deadline for turning in your Reb cash for Yank cash? Just how did that whole deal work?
It became worthless way before the war ended, actually, as it became obvious that it was a doomed enterprise. Towards the end of it all, you could get a bar of soap for $50, if you were paying in Rebel dollars.
Wouldn’t actual Confederate notes in good condition be worth alot of money to collectors and museums?
Sure. Now.
I don’t think you ever could turn in Reb cash for Yank cash. That was the point of section 4 of the XIVth Amendment:
So I don’t think you could ever turn in Confederate dollars, or redeem state bonds issued by the states in rebellion. As for the effect it had on the Southern economy, well, it’s risky going into rebellion. If you back the wrong horse, there’s consequences.
Possibly not even now, unless it’s a rare design, or in truly mint condition. So many of the more common issues of Confederate notes were printed, that there’s a lot of them about. SamClem might be able to provide specifics here. The CSA printed something in the vicinity of $2 billion in notes.
Confederate currency, as others have said, was never convertible to Federal notes.
We currently purchase decent condition Cofederate notes for about $20 each! Usually these are the 1864 issues. When I started in the coin biz in 1971, you could buy Confederate notes for about $2. each. All collectibles related to the Civil War are pretty hot.
I went to college in Richmond, VA, and I remember being in a coin dealer’s shop in the late 1960’s and seeing a two foot high stack of uncut sheets of Confederate notes on his counter. All 1864.
Some of the earlier 1861 issues are worth hundreds, some even in the thousands today. Many of the earlier notes were redeemed and destroyed.
That’s a site devoted to Confederate currency. There is an online quote page you can fill out.
The most valuable pieces by far are Confederate coins as there were very few of them to begin with and even fewer now.
There are stories from my family of people using Confederate notes for stationary after the war it was so worthless. There were also charts that showed conversion rates drawn up by some merchants and bankers. Figures are totally made up, but it might read something like:
CSA-Notes: Virginia: $50 =
CSA-Notes: Alabama: $80 =
USA Greenbacks= $15=
USA coinage= $11.40
(USA silver and gold coins were more valuable than Greenbacks, even in some parts of the Union.)
It only started becoming collectible in the 20th century. Some is worth way more than face value, some (common notes from states that issued tons of currency) not that much. I’ve got several hundred dollars worth of CSA bills that have been in the family since the war that due to condition and plentifulness isn’t worth that much; if it were worth 10x face value I’d part with it in a heartbeat but I doubt I could get face value.
Interesting that they’ve increased so much in recent years. I had the “about $2 each” figure in my head from years ago.
That site above has this interesting little table, with reference to the OP’s question:
http://www.csacurrency.com/csacur/csavcw.htm
I found another place that claimed:
As Sampiro notes, the Confederacy did issue coins, but they are extremely rare: CSA cent and CSA half dollar. The four original half dollars are all missing, and it’s pretty much “Name your price” if you should ever find one. As may be noted, the cents are worth large amounts as well. The CSA also planned to issue $5 and $20 gold coins but apparently none were ever struck. Even fake Confederate coins are worth in the hundreds of dollars.
I’ll pay $30 each for your $1 and $2 notes. My email is visible. 
As usual, you know quite a bit about coins and collecting, Poly, but in fairness, The CSA did not issue those coins. They, as your link said, were merely trying to see if coinage would be viable and only a few patterns were made.
Dirk Pitt found an Ironclad full of the $20 coins. Just have to fight your way in to and out of the Sahara to claim them.
No you wouldn’t. They’re in terrible condition- the reverse is hardly legible.
If I may ask a related question, what was the mechanism by which the money became worthless? Was it all just paper based the ‘full faith and credit of the government of the CSA’ and so became worthless when it was clear the war wasn’t going well?
Or were they notes of commercial banks which themselves tanked, hence making their notes worthless?
Basically. If I cared enough I’d dig out my old confederate $20 which is probably buried in a box somewhere, but I recall that each note said something to the effect of “Six months after the ratification of a treaty of peace between the USA and CSA, the CSA will pay to the bearer X DOLLARS on demand.” Once it was evident that there wasn’t going to be a CSA in the near future, the value of these paper notes was less than the paper it was printed on. That is, IIRC.
They were backed by the government only. And when it failed, the notes were worthless.
Both.
Even in the north there was no such thing as paper-money as we have it today. There were bank notes- essentially a check drawn on the coffers of the issuing government or bank. Coins were different- silver and gold and even pennies stood for themselves. If you had a pocketful of North Carolina banknotes in 1859 and wanted to do business in New Jersey you’d have to exchange it. (I’m a store owner in Trenton, how the hell do I know what a $10 bill from North Carolina’s supposed to look like or if this bank is any good?) You’d go by a bank and exchange currency just as you’d trade USD into Canadian dollars or Euros today.
There had been Federally issued currency before but it wasn’t popular, never caught on and had never been widely used. (Remember that income taxes were nothing compared to what they are now and the government wasn’t that rich- the Treasury was more concerned with overseeing state banks and with fighting counterfeiting than income tax.) When Lincoln ordered the new greenbacks Salmon Chase (Lincoln’s rival turned Sec. of Treasury and eventually Chief Justice) was so furious over the issue of paper currency as legal tender that he almost resigned his post as Treasurer (but fortunately for Lincoln, Chase was too politically ambitious and too close to broke to do that, so instead he issued currency with his own picture.) There had been federally issued paper money before, but this was the first time that it was EVERYWHERE; before that most private individuals would never see it, almost like military script, and most people didn’t trust it. A silver or gold coin stood for itself, or a bank note from a local bank you knew was good was good, but a piece of paper? I didn’t fall off the Irish immigrant ship.
Federally issued Confederate currency was originally not unlike war bonds that would be redeemable when the war was won. Also, the CSA had some significant gold and silver reserves at first. Unfortunately for those who converted their money into CSA currency, several things happened:
1- The South allowed state and even local governments and private banks to issue currency as well. Practically anybody who owned a printing press and engraving equipment could issue currency, and they did. The South had one of the most disastrous problems with counterfeiting in history, so from the gitgo there was a problem in knowing if this note was legit even if it was (according to its face) drawn on a bank you knew to be good.
2- Many of the more critically gifted Southerners- Lee, Forrest, even Jefferson Davis’s wife Varina, expressed from the outset that the South couldn’t win from the war. After about a year when it became clear that (unlike Davis had hoped) the North WAS going to fight and that England/France/other foreign governments weren’t going to recognize the CSA or lend serious help, the federally issued currency plummeted as people started to worry “we could be left with a bunch of orange paper”.
3- The Union blockade prevented cotton/tobacco/rice/all other major cash crops from being shipped meaning planters made no money meaning they couldn’t pay their notes (most planters were up to their nipples if not their nostrils in debt) meaning banks were failing left right and center long before Sherman struck a match. When the war of destruction started with Hooker/Sherman/etc., even more failed.
4- Debasing currency is one of the oldest tricks in history for any government having money problems. At one point lesser metals were covered with gold and silver (the whole biting of a coin is because of this) but with paper money the problem exponentialed. When the CSA Federal government ran out of money- no problem. Print some more. LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS more.
By late 1863 anybody could see pulling a victory was not going to be easy. By 1864 all but zealots knew it was impossible and by 1865 it was just a matter of when. The banks had failed and the government was in hiding. When Richmond fell the few cents on the dollar a bill may have been worth became literally the worth of the currency as scrap paper. The South had essentially reverted to barter. One story from my family is of slave traders bartering cloth/coffee/tobacco and other impossible to get items for slaves in the middle of the war- a slave that would have sold for $1,000 in 1860 being exchanged sometimes for goods that would have sold for $10. They were taking the “premium” slaves (strongest or most skilled) and blockade running them to Cuba and Brazil while they could.
Unrelated trivia: when the Mormons settled Deseret (the Mormon state in what’s now Utah, parts of Idaho/Arizona/Nevada/etc.) they had very little gold, so they backed money in livestock.
The Confederacy mde several mistakes. First, they paid out their debts in bills, but demanded payment in specie. Second, they didn’t have a full income tax. Third, they printed off truly vast sums of money. Combined with the war effort and the lack of materials and goods and the constant shrinking tax base and governed area, and the Confederacy experienced massive inflation. There was simply so much money you couldn’t do anything with it, and unlike U.S. greenbacks, it was simply issued, not endorsed. End result: you couldn’t buy much if you could find something to buy at all.
