Note class comes first
United States Notes, Silver Certificates, National Bank Notes and Federal Reserve Notes are different catalogue families.
North America · Country guide
Curated
United States
American paper money evolved from colonial experiments and private banks into a uniform Federal Reserve currency.
Currency
United States dollar
USD
Currency starts
1785 unit · 1792 coinage
Paper-money timeline
1690
National / central issue
Federal paper currency from 1861
Current issuer
Federal Reserve Board
The essential story
Start with the chronology, not the current issuer.
Congress adopted the dollar as the United States money unit in 1785; the 1792 Coinage Act then established the Mint and the federal coinage system. American paper money begins earlier with colonial notes in 1690 and Continental Currency in 1775. General federal paper currency arrived with Demand Notes in 1861.
Today the Federal Reserve Board issues notes and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing manufactures them. Note class, seal colour and issuing district are as important as denomination.
History in layers
Banknote eras
Dates describe what began in each period—not necessarily when every note stopped circulating.
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1690–1789
Colonial and Continental money
Colonies used paper to meet shortages of coin; the Continental Congress issued currency from 1775.
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1791–1860
Early federal and private-bank notes
A diverse system of state-chartered and private bank issues circulated alongside federally defined coinage.
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1861–1862
Demand Notes and United States Notes
Civil War financing produced the first broadly circulating federal paper currency and the greenback tradition.
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1863–1913
National Banking Era
National Bank Notes circulated alongside several federal classes, each with distinctive seals and legal foundations. The 1913 endpoint marks the Federal Reserve Act, not the end of these notes: National Bank Notes overlapped Federal Reserve notes, with the last issued in 1929.
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1914–1928
Large-size Federal Reserve notes
The Federal Reserve Act created the current issuing system; the first Federal Reserve notes appeared in 1914.
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1929–1989
Standardised small-size designs
Notes became roughly 30% smaller and denomination layouts were standardised for easier recognition.
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1990–present
Modern security redesign
Machine-readable features, enlarged portraits and subtle colour entered in stages; the current $100 debuted in 2013.
Collector’s lens
Details worth cataloguing
Series year is not print year
A U.S. series date marks a design or signature combination and does not necessarily state when the individual note was printed.
Star notes
A star in the serial identifies a replacement note and should be stored separately from the serial itself.
Older designs remain valid
United States currency issued since 1861 remains valid at face value, even when a design is no longer produced.
Issue catalogue
Series and denominations
The curated history is ready; the full issue checklist has not yet been generated.
Full issue research is the next layer.
The country guide above is already available. Building the checklist runs multiple smaller historical searches, merges them and asks a separate Terra model to audit the chronology.
Primary reading
Official and institutional sources
Curated profile reviewed 2026-07-29.
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