The wartime notes worth hundreds: Hawaii, North Africa and silver certificates
In 1942 the US printed money designed to be repudiated if it were captured. Brown seals, yellow seals and HAWAII across the back, and they are worth far more than face.
In the Buck index
$20 Hawaii Overprint Note (WWII emergency issue)United States · 1942–1944 · Paper$103 to $162
$5 North Africa Silver Certificate (yellow seal)United States · 1942–1944 · Paper$110 to $388
$5 Silver Certificate (blue seal, small size)United States · 1928–1953 · Paper$8.11 to $21.48
After Pearl Harbor the United States faced a problem with no precedent: if Hawaii were invaded, the dollars in circulation there would fall into enemy hands and be spendable anywhere in the world.
The answer was to make them identifiable so they could be declared worthless overnight.
The Hawaii overprints
From June 1942, notes issued in Hawaii carried HAWAII overprinted twice on the face and once in huge letters across the back, with a brown seal and brown serial numbers instead of the usual green. Ordinary notes were withdrawn and burned. If the islands fell, the whole issue could be repudiated in a sentence.
They were made in $1, $5, $10 and $20. Buck prices the $20 at roughly $103 to $162, and the $1 is the commonest by far. Any of them in genuinely uncirculated condition are worth multiples of that.
The overprint is bold and unmistakable, which is also why fakes exist: overprinting a common note is easy. Paper, seal colour and serial block are the checks.
The North Africa yellow seals
The same logic was applied to Operation Torch. Silver certificates issued to troops landing in North Africa in late 1942 carry a yellow seal instead of blue, for the same reason: identifiable, repudiable.
They came in $1, $5 and $10. The $5 is priced at about $110 to $388, and the range is that wide because condition does an enormous amount of work on a note that spent a war in a soldier's pocket.
Silver certificates generally
A silver certificate was a note redeemable for silver at the Treasury, printed with a blue seal, and issued until 1963. Redemption for silver dollars ended in 1964 and for silver bullion in 1968, so today they are worth their collector value and their face value, whichever is higher.
Most small-size blue seals from 1935 and 1957 are common: a circulated $1 silver certificate is worth a couple of dollars. The $5 blue seals run about $8 to $21. The money is in the star notes, the early series, and anything genuinely crisp.
What to look at first
Colour. It sorts this whole category in one glance.
- Green seal: an ordinary Federal Reserve Note. Face value unless the serial or condition is special.
- Blue seal: silver certificate. Small premium, more if early or crisp.
- Brown seal with HAWAII: wartime emergency issue. Real money.
- Yellow seal: North Africa. Real money.
- Gold seal: gold certificate, withdrawn in 1933. The $20 prices around $201 and the larger denominations are serious collector notes.
- Red seal: United States Note, a different Treasury issue. Modest premium.
Then read the condition honestly, because on notes this old the grade multiplies everything else.
