1896

The reverse of the 1896 $5 Educational Silver Certificate features one of the most ambitious and artistically daring designs ever placed on American paper money, pairing the portraits of Ulysses S. Grant and Philip Sheridan within an allegory of military triumph. Understanding the iconography, the artists behind it, and the political context of this extraordinary note reveals why collectors and historians alike consider it a crown jewel of 19th-century American currency.