📷 Image source: banknote.ws (World Banknote Gallery). Images are selected by AI to represent the article topic and may not depict the exact note(s) described.
When American Money Looked Like Art
Pick up a well-preserved example of the 1869 Legal Tender series and you are holding one of the most visually ambitious statements the United States government ever made on paper. These notes, nicknamed “Rainbow Notes” by collectors for their bold, polychrome printing, abandoned the relative austerity of the wartime Legal Tender issues and embraced allegorical imagery rooted in centuries of European artistic tradition. At the center of that imagery, again and again, are women: idealized, toga-draped, and deliberately symbolic. They are Justice with her scales, Liberty with her cap, Columbia with her shield, and a rotating cast of virtues rendered in fine engraving by some of the most skilled craftsmen the Bureau of Engraving and Printing ever employed.
The Historical Context: Reconstruction and the Currency of Idealism
To understand why allegorical women dominate the 1869 series, you need to situate yourself in the political and cultural moment. The Civil War had ended only four years earlier. The Legal Tender Acts of 1862 and 1863 had created the first truly national paper currency, the “greenbacks,” as an emergency wartime measure. By 1869, with Ulysses S. Grant newly inaugurated and Reconstruction in full, contentious swing, the Treasury Department sought to redesign the currency as a statement of permanence, legitimacy, and national aspiration. The result was a series of notes that looked less like emergency scrip and more like printed allegories of the Republic itself.
The tradition of using female figures to personify abstract virtues on currency and official seals was borrowed consciously from classical antiquity and filtered through the neoclassical art of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The French Republic had used Marianne; the British used Britannia; the new American Republic had experimented with Liberty and Columbia on coinage since the 1790s. By 1869, these figures carried enormous symbolic freight, particularly in a nation trying to define what it meant to be “reunited.”
The One Dollar Note: Justice Inverted and the “Jackass” Controversy
The 1869 $1 Legal Tender (Fr. 18) is the entry point for most collectors exploring this series. Its central vignette features a portrait of Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln’s Treasury Secretary and the man most responsible for the greenback system. But the design also incorporates a small vignette of the Capitol building and, on the reverse, a boldly printed “1” in red that interacts with the green and black printing to create the rainbow effect collectors prize.
What makes the $1 truly famous in collecting circles is the so-called “Jackass Note” phenomenon. The portrait of the American eagle, when the note is turned upside down, bears a striking resemblance to a donkey. Contemporary newspapers noted this with considerable amusement, and the nickname stuck. But there is a deeper point about artistic intent here: the engravers were working within a tradition where the orientation and framing of symbolic imagery was considered with great care. The eagle is a deliberate statement of national power; the accidental donkey is a reminder that symbolism is always in dialogue with its audience.
When evaluating 1869 $1 Legal Tenders (Fr. 18), focus closely on the crispness of the fine-line lathe work surrounding the Chase portrait. These geometric patterns, called “engine turning” or “guilloche,” are extremely susceptible to wear and fading. A note with crisp, unbroken guilloche in the surrounding borders grades significantly higher than one with even minor rub in that area. Examples in PMG Very Fine 30 typically trade between $400 and $700; Extremely Fine 40 examples can reach $1,200 or more at major auction.
Justice on the Two Dollar Note
The 1869 $2 Legal Tender (Fr. 41) is where allegorical female imagery takes center stage in the most explicit way. The left vignette on the face features a seated figure of Justice, recognizable by her scales and, in some design variants, a sword. This figure draws directly on the iconographic tradition established in European civic art, most immediately on the allegorical figures found in U.S. Mint medals and on the Great Seal imagery that had been circulating in official contexts since 1782.
The Justice figure on the Fr. 41 is the work of engravers working under the supervision of the American Bank Note Company, which held the printing contract before the Bureau of Engraving and Printing assumed full control in the 1870s. The quality of the intaglio engraving on surviving high-grade examples is extraordinary: the folds of Justice’s robe show individual thread-like lines, and the facial expression conveys a serene authority that lesser engravers simply could not achieve. This is not decoration; it was also anti-counterfeiting technology, since reproducing such fine-line work by any photomechanical process available in the 1860s was essentially impossible.
The right vignette on the $2 note features Thomas Jefferson, whose presence alongside Justice creates an implicit argument: the rule of law and the ideals of the founding generation are linked, and the currency is their physical embodiment. This pairing of allegorical virtue with historical portraiture was a deliberate design choice that appears throughout the 1869 series.
Liberty and Columbus on the Five Dollar Note
The 1869 $5 Legal Tender (Fr. 64) is arguably the most visually complex note in the series and one of the most beloved by large-size collectors. The face features a portrait of Andrew Jackson at left and a magnificent vignette of Christopher Columbus sighting land at right. The reverse, however, is where Liberty makes her most powerful statement in the entire series.
The back of the Fr. 64 carries a large central vignette known as “Pioneer Family” or sometimes simply “Westward Ho,” depicting a frontier scene. But the border and design elements incorporate Liberty cap imagery and Columbia-adjacent figures that place the note squarely within the allegorical tradition. The combination of the green and red coloring on the reverse gives the note its most vivid rainbow characteristics, and surviving examples in grades above Very Fine are increasingly difficult to find.
The 1869 $5 Legal Tender (Fr. 64) is notoriously prone to oxidation staining on the red overprint elements. When purchasing, examine the red serial numbers and Treasury seal under good light and, if possible, under a loupe. Oxidized red ink takes on a brownish or rusty tone that significantly impacts eye appeal and grade. Notes with bright, true-red overprinting command substantial premiums over those with toned serial numbers, often 30 to 50 percent more at the same certified grade.
The Higher Denominations: Commerce, Plenty, and the Apex of Engraving Art
As you move up through the 1869 denomination ladder, the allegorical content intensifies. The $10 Legal Tender of 1869 (Fr. 96) features Daniel Webster at left and a vignette of Pocahontas being presented at the English court at right, which is itself a complex and historically fraught allegorical statement about American identity. The $20 (Fr. 126) carries a running figure of Liberty clutching a sword and shield, one of the most dynamic female allegorical figures on any nineteenth-century American note.
The $50 Legal Tender of 1869 (Fr. 151) is among the rarest notes in the entire series available to private collectors. It features an allegorical vignette of “Peace” at left, a seated woman with an olive branch, paired with a portrait of Alexander Hamilton. Print runs were small; survivorship is tiny. Most known examples reside in institutional collections or have been certified by PMG or PCGS Currency in grades ranging from Fine 12 to Very Fine 25, with the occasional Extremely Fine example generating significant auction excitement when it surfaces.
The $100 Legal Tender of 1869 (Fr. 168) features Abraham Lincoln at left and an allegorical vignette of “Architecture” at right, another female figure representing the arts of civilization. Only a handful of examples are known to exist in any grade, and the note is essentially a museum piece for most collectors.
The Engravers Behind the Women: James Smillie and Charles Burt
The allegorical figures on the 1869 series did not spring from the Treasury Department’s imagination. They were the work of master engravers, most notably James David Smillie (1833 to 1909) and Charles Burt (1823 to 1892), whose careers bridged the private bank note company era and the professionalized Bureau of Engraving and Printing period.
James Smillie was particularly responsible for landscape vignettes and figure work on several Legal Tender issues. His father, James Smillie Sr., had been one of the premier banknote engravers of the antebellum period, and the younger Smillie inherited both his technical skill and his sense of classical proportion. Charles Burt, a Scottish-born engraver who trained in Edinburgh before emigrating, specialized in portrait work but also contributed figure vignettes. His portraits of Lincoln, Hamilton, and Grant on various Legal Tender and National Bank Note issues are considered among the finest portrait engravings ever produced for American currency.
Understanding who engraved specific vignettes adds a layer of connoisseurship to collecting these notes that goes well beyond serial number varieties or signature combinations. When you examine a high-grade Fr. 64 or Fr. 96, you are looking at work that was considered fine art by contemporaries, exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876 as proof of American industrial and artistic achievement.
Third-party certification is essentially mandatory for serious 1869 Rainbow Note collecting. Both PMG (Paper Money Guaranty) and PCGS Currency have graded significant populations of these notes, and their population reports are invaluable research tools. Before bidding at auction, consult the PMG or PCGS Census to understand how many examples are certified at or above the grade you are considering. For notes like the Fr. 151 ($50) and Fr. 168 ($100), the total certified populations are in the single digits or low teens, which makes each auction appearance a genuine market-defining event.
Signature Combinations and Series Varieties
The 1869 series carries the signatures of Treasurer Francis E. Spinner and Register of the Treasury John Allison. This Spinner-Allison combination is the defining signature pair for the series and appears consistently across denominations. Importantly, Spinner was himself a committed supporter of women in the workforce, famously hiring women as currency counters at the Treasury in the 1860s, a connection that gives the allegorical female figures on these notes an additional biographical resonance.
Collectors should also be aware that some 1869 notes were later reissued or had serial number runs that extended into the early 1870s without a new series designation, which can create confusion in catalog attribution. The Friedberg catalog (“Paper Money of the United States,” now in its 22nd edition) remains the definitive reference for sorting out these varieties, and the specific Fr. numbers assigned to each denomination-signature combination are the collector standard.
| Friedberg No. | Denomination | Key Vignette / Figure | Known/Est. Pop. | Rarity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fr. 18 | $1 | Eagle / Capitol (“Jackass” reverse) | Several hundred known | Common |
| Fr. 41 | $2 | Justice (seated, with scales) | 150 to 300 estimated | Scarce |
| Fr. 64 | $5 | Columbus sighting land / Pioneer Family | 200 to 400 estimated | Scarce |
| Fr. 96 | $10 | Pocahontas presented at court | 100 to 200 estimated | Scarce |
| Fr. 126 | $20 | Liberty running with sword and shield | 50 to 100 estimated | Rare |
| Fr. 151 | $50 | Peace (seated, with olive branch) | Under 20 known | Key Date |
| Fr. 168 | $100 | Architecture (allegorical female figure) | Under 10 known | Key Date |
| Fr. 183 | $500 | Admiral David Farragut / allegorical border | Possibly unique or 2 known | Key Date |
What the Women Mean: Allegory as Political Argument
It is worth stepping back and asking what it meant, in 1869, to place idealized women on the national currency. These were not portraits of real women; there would be no real women on U.S. paper money until Martha Washington appeared on the 1886 Silver Certificate series. These were abstract virtues given female form, a convention with deep roots in classical antiquity and Renaissance civic art.
In the context of Reconstruction, the choice of Justice as a recurring figure is not politically neutral. The nation was in the midst of a tortured argument about what justice meant for formerly enslaved people, for the defeated Confederacy, and for the future of American democracy. Placing Justice on the currency was an assertion, however imperfect, of an ideal the government claimed to be pursuing. Liberty, similarly, was a fraught concept in 1869: the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were redefining who liberty applied to. The allegorical figures on the 1869 notes exist within that argument, even if the Treasury’s intent was primarily aesthetic and anti-counterfeiting rather than explicitly political.
For the contemporary collector, this historical layering is part of what makes these notes so rewarding to study. A certified Fr. 41 in Very Fine 25, priced in the $800 to $1,500 range depending on eye appeal, is not just a 155-year-old piece of paper. It is a primary document of a pivotal moment in American history, filtered through the hands of master engravers who were themselves navigating the cultural currents of their time.
Building a type set of the 1869 Rainbow Notes across all accessible denominations (the $1, $2, $5, and $10 are realistic targets for most collectors) is a rewarding long-term project. Aim for consistency in grade within your set: a matched set of PMG Very Fine 25 examples across four denominations presents far more cohesively and commands more respect at show tables than a mixed-grade set with a gem $1 alongside a damaged $5. Budget roughly $3,000 to $6,000 for a well-matched VF type set of the four lower denominations, depending on eye appeal and current market conditions.
Conclusion: Currency as Cultural Mirror
The allegorical women on the 1869 Rainbow Notes are not decorative afterthoughts. They are the design. They represent a considered decision by the Treasury Department, working through the best engravers of the age, to make the national currency a visual argument for the ideals of the Republic at its most self-consciously aspirational moment. Justice held her scales over a nation still deeply divided about what justice meant. Liberty waved her cap over a people still arguing about who was free. Commerce moved through a country rebuilding its economic connections after four years of war.
For numismatists, the practical takeaway is clear: these notes reward study at every level. The entry-level collector can acquire a respectable Fr. 18 for a few hundred dollars and begin learning the design traditions that shaped American currency for generations. The advanced collector chasing a Fr. 151 or Fr. 168 is engaged with some of the rarest and most historically significant paper money ever produced by the United States government. Either way, the allegorical women of 1869 are excellent company on the journey.
