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Issued sixteen years before the Declaration of Independence, this note circulated in the Province of Pennsylvania during the reign of King George II. Its designs incorporate several features intended to discourage counterfeiting, including an intricate nature-print leaf impression associated with Benjamin Franklin’s pioneering security-printing work. The reverse also bears the dramatic colonial warning:
“To Counterfeit is DEATH.”
The note displays the Pennsylvania or Penn family arms, a royal portrait, ornamental borders and the twenty-shillings denomination. The surviving serial number appears to read No. 615.
The lot consists of what appear to be the separated obverse and reverse faces of a single original note. Each piece is blank on its opposite side, indicating that the note was likely split into two layers during an early mounting, removal or conservation procedure. Both pieces retain the same prominent horizontal center fold.
The condition is heavily circulated, with considerable toning, fading, surface wear, rounded corners and largely faded signatures. Nevertheless, the major printed designs remain identifiable. Offered as an unusual study example of a scarce Franklin-printed Pennsylvania colonial note.
Date: May 1, 1760
Colony: Pennsylvania
Denomination: Twenty Shillings
Printer: Benjamin Franklin and David Hall
Catalog number: Friedberg PA-112
Condition: Two separated faces; heavily worn, faded and toned; sold as pictured
