Five dollar bank note sells for $49,995 above face value

Northwestern Financial Review, Jan 1, 2002 by Dullum, Justin

That dusty mountain of paper huddled in the darkest corner of your bank's basement might be worth sifting through. Decades after paper money collectors believed that all examples were destroyed, a $5 bill from the 1880s Wild West days of prestatehood Wyoming has come to light.

It is the only known surviving Territory of Wyoming bank note from the early railroad town of Douglas, and was signed in 1886 by a future Wyoming governor. The bank note was handed down through four generations of an early Hollywood actor's family.

Well-known coin collector and sports agent Dwight Manley, managing partner of the California Gold Marketing Group of Newport Beach, Calif., purchased it for ten thousand times its face value - $50,000. A coin collector since the age of six, Manley is also President of United Sports Agency and the agent for basketball legend Karl Malone and a half dozen other NBA players.

Manley acquired it from the greatgranddaughter of the note's first known owner, George Montgomery "Monte" Blue, a veteran actor who appeared in nearly 250 films beginning in 1915 with the silent screen classic, "Birth of a Nation." It is not known when Blue obtained it.

"It was kept in an envelope as a souvenir," said Manley. "The most recent recipient wanted to find out if it was worth anything. Initially, she had no idea it was worth so much money. The first place she contacted offered her $20,000. When she found out it was worth that kind of money, she told her boss who belongs to the same country club as I. He got us in touch and we worked out a sale for $50,000."

Dated September 13, 1886, the $5 "territorial" was issued by the First National Bank of Douglas, Wyoming the year the town was founded. One of the two authorization signatures on the note was hand written by the bank's first president, DeForest Richards, who served as governor from 1899 to1903.

"This is from back in the old days when banks had a lot of free reign," said Don Pearlman, former board member of the 30,000member American Numismatic Association. "Back in those days, the authorization signatures, done by the bank president or cashier, had to be done by hand on each note. This particular note was signed by the president of the bank who, 13 years later, became the governor of Wyoming. That adds significantly to its value."

The portrait on the bill is U.S. President James A. Garfield who was assassinated five years earlier. Federal banking records indicate the First National Bank of Douglas issued 3,820 pieces of paper money in denominations of $5, $10 and $20 prior to Wyoming becoming a state in 1890. This is the only known surviving example.

Including the 3,820 notes issued by the First National Bank of Douglas prior to statehood, various Territory of Wyoming banks issued a combined total of 97,848 pieces of paper money. Today the whereabouts of only 14 of those bank notes are known; a tiny survival rate of roughly one out of every 7,000 that went into circulation.

The unique Wyoming $5 bill will be placed on exhibit at a coin and currency collectors' convention in Orlando later this month. The First National Bank of Douglas opened in 1886 and closed in 1923. Under the National Currency Act legislation of 1863 the bank was granted Charter No. 3556 to issue National Bank Notes. The National Currency Act provided for the issuing of circulating paper money, and helped finance the Civil War.

By Justin Dullum