1860 $10 State Bank, South Carolina

About This Note

The note you see here is the exact note you will receive. PMG notes "Toning" on the slab: natural age toning consistent with a note of this era, reflected in the grade.

The $10 note of the State Bank of South Carolina, Charleston, is one of the most visually commanding pieces in all of Southern obsolete currency. The central vignette: a majestic tall ship under full sail in a busy harbor, flanked by smaller vessels: is a masterwork of 19th-century bank note engraving, executed by the prestigious firms of Bald, Cousland & Co. of Philadelphia and Bald, Adams & Co. of New York. At lower left, a delicate portrait of a young woman adds further elegance to the design. The bold red "TEN DOLLARS" overprint across the center was a standard anti-counterfeiting measure of the era.

This note is dated 8 February 1860: issued in Charleston, South Carolina, less than ten months before the state became the first to secede from the Union on December 20, 1860. Notes from this exact period carry an extraordinary historical weight: they circulated in the final days of antebellum South Carolina, in the very city where the Civil War would begin at Fort Sumter just fourteen months later.

Serial number 415, plate position C, with original hand-signed signatures of the Cashier (G.W. Lee) and the President. SC40G34b is the standard reference for this type in the Whitman/Haxby obsolete currency catalog.

At PMG About Uncirculated 53, this note retains exceptional detail and paper quality for its age, with only the lightest evidence of handling and the natural toning noted by PMG.