The Series 1863 $100 United States Note Legal Tender: The Eagle on Shield Design and Civil War Era Survivorship

A Nation at War, a Currency Born of Necessity

By the spring of 1863, the United States government was hemorrhaging money at a rate the young nation had never before experienced. The Union Army required staggering sums to fund payroll, munitions, and logistics across hundreds of miles of contested territory. Congress had already authorized the Legal Tender Acts of February 25, 1862, and March 3, 1863, creating a fiat paper currency backed by nothing more than the faith and credit of the federal government. It was within this crucible of wartime fiscal crisis that the Series 1863 $100 United States Note, known in modern catalogs as Fr. 167 through Fr. 167c, was produced. These notes did not merely circulate; they funded a war, and the ones that survived tell a remarkable story about paper money’s fragility and a collector’s eternal fascination with scarce, historic currency.

The Eagle on Shield: Dissecting an Iconic Design

The obverse of the Series 1863 $100 Legal Tender note is dominated by one of the most powerful vignettes in 19th-century American banknote engraving: a bold American eagle with wings spread, perched atop a federal shield, clutching arrows and an olive branch. This central vignette was engraved by some of the finest craftsmen of the era, working for the National Bank Note Company and its successor arrangement with the American Bank Note Company, both of which held government printing contracts during this period. The detail in the eagle’s feathers, the shading of the shield’s vertical stripes, and the baroque lettering of the denomination all reflect the peak of mid-19th century intaglio printing technique.

The reverse of these notes is equally compelling. A large green “100” counter appears prominently against an intricate geometric lathe-work background, the green ink being the very feature that gave United States Notes their enduring nickname: “greenbacks.” The back design served a deliberate anti-counterfeiting function, as the complex geometric patterns were extremely difficult to replicate with the photographic and lithographic technology available to counterfeiters of the 1860s.

One important design element that collectors must understand when attributing these notes is the Treasury seal. The Series 1863 $100 Legal Tender notes appear with two distinct seal varieties: a smaller, scalloped-edge red seal and a larger medallion-style red seal. These differences, combined with the signature combinations on the face of the note, are the primary basis for distinguishing the Friedberg catalog varieties from one another.

Signature Combinations and Friedberg Varieties

The Series 1863 $100 Legal Tender notes are cataloged under four primary Friedberg numbers, each distinguished by its combination of Register of the Treasury and Treasurer of the United States signatures. Understanding these combinations is essential for any serious collector, as they carry dramatically different values.

Fr. 167 (Chittenden-Spinner): This is the foundational variety, signed by Lucius E. Chittenden as Register and Francis E. Spinner as Treasurer. Chittenden served as Register from April 1861 through August 1864, placing this signature combination squarely within the Civil War period. Notes signed by Chittenden and Spinner on the $100 Legal Tender are among the more obtainable of the group, though “obtainable” is a highly relative term when discussing a note where fewer than 100 examples in any grade are believed to survive across all varieties.

Fr. 167a (Colby-Spinner): Signed by S.B. Colby as Register and Spinner as Treasurer. Colby assumed the Register’s position in 1865, meaning these notes bridged the transition from wartime to early Reconstruction. The Colby-Spinner combination is considerably scarcer than Chittenden-Spinner.

Fr. 167b (Jeffries-Spinner): Signed by John Jeffries as Register, a tenure that lasted only briefly in 1869, making this combination particularly short-lived in production and correspondingly rare among survivors. Fr. 167b is widely regarded as the key variety of the series.

Fr. 167c (Allison-Spinner): Signed by James Gilfillan’s predecessor, J.C. New, or more accurately by Register William S. Allison paired with the long-serving Spinner. The Allison-Spinner combination on $100 Legal Tenders represents the later production of the series and is similarly difficult to locate in collectible grades.

The Survivorship Challenge: Why So Few Remain

The question most collectors ask when first encountering the Series 1863 $100 Legal Tender is deceptively simple: if hundreds of thousands were printed, why are so few known today? The answer lies in a confluence of factors that were almost perfectly designed to destroy high-denomination Civil War paper money.

First, consider the economic reality of a $100 note in 1863. The average Union Army private earned $13 per month. A $100 Legal Tender note represented more than seven months of a soldier’s pay. Notes of this denomination did not circulate hand-to-hand in the way that $1 and $2 Legal Tenders did. They moved between merchants, banks, and government contractors, subjected to folding, handling, and the general indignity of commercial paper. The notes that wore out were returned to the Treasury and destroyed.

Second, the government itself was the greatest destroyer of these notes. Beginning in the late 1860s and accelerating through the 1870s, the Treasury undertook systematic currency redemption programs, pulling worn Legal Tenders from circulation and canceling them. The surviving population of Series 1863 $100 Legal Tenders is therefore a genuine historical accident: notes that escaped destruction through savings, banking vault retention, or simple geographic isolation from redemption centers.

Third, the notes that did survive 160-plus years of American history faced the additional perils of fire, flood, vermin, and the casual disregard of people who did not understand what they held. Estate sales and attic discoveries of these notes are the stuff of numismatic legend, and they do occasionally occur, but the pipeline of previously unknown specimens has slowed to a trickle in the modern era.

Grading Realities and What to Expect at Auction

A collector entering the market for Series 1863 $100 Legal Tender notes must calibrate expectations carefully. Notes grading Fine 12 to Very Fine 20 appear at major auction houses perhaps two to four times per year across all varieties combined. Examples grading Extremely Fine 40 or above are genuinely rare events in the auction calendar, sometimes appearing only once or twice per decade for specific varieties like Fr. 167b.

In terms of realized prices, Fine examples of the more common Fr. 167 Chittenden-Spinner variety have sold in the range of $8,000 to $18,000 depending on eye appeal, paper quality, and the strength of the bidding field. Very Fine examples have crossed the $25,000 threshold at Heritage Auctions and Stack’s Bowers. For the key Fr. 167b Jeffries-Spinner variety, even a heavily circulated Good or Very Good example commands significant premiums when it surfaces, with some auction records in the $30,000 to $50,000 range for mid-grade certified examples.

Graders at PMG and PCGS Currency apply several specific criteria to these notes beyond simple fold-counting. Original paper quality, brightness of the red Treasury seal, ink depth on the eagle vignette, and the absence of staining or repair are all heavily weighted. A note with four clean folds grading Very Fine 25 with exceptional color will often bring more at auction than a technically higher-graded example with washed-out seal color or a pressed-out but visible crease pattern.

Collecting Context: Where This Note Fits in a Type Set

For collectors building a comprehensive type set of United States Legal Tender Notes, the Series 1863 $100 represents one of the most ambitious acquisitions in the First Issue category. The full Legal Tender type set spans from the original Series 1862 notes through the final Series 1923 $1 Legal Tender, and the high-denomination Civil War issues are universally recognized as the cornerstone pieces of any serious collection.

Many advanced collectors approach the Series 1863 $100 as a single-note representation of the entire Civil War currency era, pairing it with examples of the contemporary fractional currency issues (particularly the First Issue fractional notes of 1862-1863) to tell a complete story of Union monetary policy during the conflict. Thematic displays built around this note have performed exceptionally well in competitive exhibit settings at American Numismatic Association conventions and the International Paper Money Show.

For newer collectors not yet ready to commit the resources required for a certified example, a meaningful alternative strategy exists: collect the associated fiscal paper of the era, including contemporary Treasury correspondence, revenue stamps from the 1862-1871 period, and photographic reproductions of Treasury printing operations, building contextual knowledge that will make the eventual acquisition of a genuine note far more rewarding.

A Final Word on Authenticity and Due Diligence

The combination of age, scarcity, and strong market values makes the Series 1863 $100 Legal Tender a note that demands extraordinary due diligence. Sophisticated altered notes and outright counterfeits do exist in this series, most commonly involving the alteration of lower-denomination 1860s Legal Tenders or the marriage of genuine note components with fraudulent elements. The paper of Civil War era currency is a distinctive hand-laid stock with embedded silk fibers; genuine notes have a specific weight, texture, and aging character that experienced handlers can often detect tactilely.

The numismatic community’s consensus is unambiguous: no Series 1863 $100 Legal Tender should change hands at collector-grade prices without independent third-party certification from PMG or PCGS Currency. The grading fee is a trivial fraction of the note’s value and the peace of mind it provides is absolute.

Conclusion: The Eagle Still Soars

The Series 1863 $100 United States Legal Tender Note is more than a collector’s trophy. It is a document of American survival, printed at the moment when the republic’s future was genuinely uncertain, circulated through the hands of merchants, bankers, and wartime contractors, and preserved by the accidents of history that make numismatics endlessly fascinating. Whether you are a seasoned specialist building the definitive Legal Tender type set or a newer collector encountering this note for the first time in a major auction catalog, the eagle on shield design demands respect, careful study, and the recognition that very few pieces of American paper money carry this much history per square inch of linen and cotton fiber.