Picked this confederate bill up on my last trip.....

[Bruceswar]

It is a 50 Cent note April 6th 1863... Richmond Va.

 

Here is a picture... there is no back design....

 

[Hoot]

Very interesting Bruce - Why would Lincoln's portrait be on that note?

 

Hoot

[Bruceswar]

I am not really sure ... to be honest I was not quite sure who the man was.... But I have not seen many of those in a shop... so I pounced on it when I had the chance... Is there a price guide for these things?

[TomB]

Looks more like the profile of Jefferson Davis than of Lincoln. Heck, it even looks more like Andrew Jackson than of Lincoln.

[Bruceswar]

I will look for some more infomation on it.... I will get to the bottom of this...

[Hoot]

Looks more like the profile of Jefferson Davis than of Lincoln. Heck, it even looks more like Andrew Jackson than of Lincoln.

 

Beard under the chin and the thin profile with prominent nose - looks like Lincoln to me.

 

Of course, I'm not as old as you, Tom, and was not personally acquainted with Davis and his contemporaries as you are.

 

Hoot

[TomB]

Hoot, it's Jefferson Davis. It's a Type 63 note with bust of Jefferson Davis. I should know, after all, I was one of his groomsmen at his wedding to Zachary Taylor's daughter in 1835!

[BillJones]

It's not Lincoln; it's Jeff Davis, guys.

 

This was the Confederate government's one foray (in 1863 and ’64) into the world of fractional currency. The trouble was inflation was so bad by this time that 50 cents won't buy much of anything.

 

As the Confederate government got more disparate they issued more and more paper money. Here’s a $500 note that appeared during the Confederacy’s last 14 months of life. It’s not rare, but it’s popular because of Stonewall Jackson’s portrait at the lower right.

 

 

Finally the combination of over saturating the money supply and governmental collapse made it all worthless, until collectors got interested in it.

[Hoot]

Once Tom chimed in, I knew I was off track. Having been Jeff Davis' groomsman, I simply can't argue with the fellow.

 

But now I'm sure that Elvis is still alive, and perhaps the son of Stonewall Jackson. And Jefferson Davis was surely Lincoln's twin, separated at birth.

 

Hoot

[TomB]

But now I'm sure that Elvis is still alive, and perhaps the son of Stonewall Jackson. And Jefferson Davis was surely Lincoln's twin, separated at birth.

 

Well, I don't see how I could argue that one!

[TomB]

You'll like this one, Hoot, and I am pretty certain that I will get some details wrong. However, the bulk of the idea will be correct.

 

Some time after Lincoln's death there was a speculator who bought what was purportedly the log cabin of Lincoln's birthplace. His idea was that he would take the cabin around the country and make money through tourist sales. It didn't work. So, it went in storage, piece-by-piece. Similarly, the log cabin of purportedly of Davis's birthplace was purchased and was also taken apart and stored. Eventually, the same person owned both cabins and, through repeated moving and setting up rituals, the logs became hopelessly intermingled! What is now displayed as Lincoln's birthplace is a cabin made from a mixture of the logs from these two cabins. What's worse, to make the cabin more "fitted" to its monument, the logs were cut down in length so the building would be smaller! True story.

[Hoot]

 

So now we have the Jefferson Lincoln cabin? Or the Abraham Davis cabin? Great story! What irony.

 

Hoot

[BillJones]

According to the History Channel, the wood in the "Abe Lincoln" cabin dates from the mid 1840s. Since the "Great Emancipator" was born in 1809 it looks like they didn’t find the right building.

 

If they show it again, I think that the name of the show was, "The Real Lincoln."

[TomB]

That's a nice tidbit, Bill. This story keeps getting better and better!

[Wihlborg]

Maybe all the wood from the real Lincoln cabin was used up making all those Lincoln log sets we used to play with as kids.

 

John

[TomB]

You know, there is a certain beauty to that logic...