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These two mounted pieces display the face and reverse designs of Pennsylvania’s July 1, 1757 fifteen-shillings currency issue, cataloged as Friedberg PA-87. Authorized during the reign of King George II, these bills circulated in colonial Pennsylvania during the French and Indian War.
The face displays the denomination “FIFTEEN SHILLINGS,” Pennsylvania legal-tender language, three crown symbols, the Penn family arms and remnants of the handwritten serial number and signatures.
The reverse incorporates an elaborate nature-print leaf—one of Benjamin Franklin’s most ingenious anti-counterfeiting devices. The surviving text includes the memorable warning “To Counterfeit is Death” and the printer’s imprint “Printed by B. Franklin and D. Hall.”
Franklin created nature prints by taking impressions from actual leaves, capturing their complicated vein structures in extraordinary detail. These virtually unique patterns made the notes much harder for eighteenth-century counterfeiters to reproduce.Considerable toning, fading, surface abrasion, fold separation, edge losses and mounting residue. Nevertheless, they remain identifiable examples of an important and scarce Franklin-printed colonial currency issue.
Colony: Pennsylvania
Date: July 1, 1757
Denomination: Fifteen Shillings
Printers: Benjamin Franklin and David Hall
Catalog number: Friedberg PA-87
Condition: Poor and heavily impaired; mounted and backed as pictured
