Lot 1442
1914 $2.50 Indian. PCGS graded MS-64. Well struck and a solid case can be made to call this a gem. Vivid steel olive and golden-orange overtones adds to its appeal. With the exception of a few intermingled blushes of varied tinting in areas, as described, both sides present as orange-gold in color. Of the 15 issues comprising the Indian Head series, the 1914 is one of the most elusive, adding an extra element of desirability. Its mintage of 240,000 pieces marks it as the Philadelphia date with the lowest production, and only the famous 1911-D has a lower mintage across all issues. Pop 350; 71 finer (PCGS # 7946) .
Historic Gold Market Crisis of Summer of 1914: On July 31, 1914, as war declarations spread throughout Europe presaging the First World War, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, William McAdoo shut the New York Stock Exchange for an unprecedented four months to hamper British sales of American securities. The British could not drain American gold without the dollar proceeds from sales of U.S. stocks and bonds. (McAdoo desired to protect America’s gold coin & bullion supply at a time when the 12 Federal Reserve Banks had yet to be fully supplied with the metal upon before their anticipated opening later that year.)
On August 3 he flooded the country with paper money to prevent a repetition of the bank runs that had embarrassed America only a few years earlier, during the Panic of 1907. Banks had been forced to suspend the convertibility of their deposits into currency when they could not meet depositor demands for cash during October 1907. Banks avoided suspending their obligations in 1914 by offering depositors the emergency currency (National Bank Notes identical to those of the Series of 1902 Second Charter notes already in use) dispensed under McAdoo's orders.
A federal enactment passed in 1908 after the Panic of 1907 to guard against a replay of the panic, anticipated the importance of speed in containing a crisis. It had stipulated that $500 million in emergency currency that had been authorized be printed immediately after the passage of the act. Each national bank's allotment of notes, embossed with the bank's name and decorative logo, had been prepared for distribution by the end of 1908. The entire supply had been stored in an underground vault especially constructed for this purpose in Washington, D.C.
Estimated Value $9,000 - 10,000.
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