Chattanooga Money

In 1996 I was working at our local coin show in Chattanooga when I struck up a conversation with Paul Garland, a dealer located near the door. He asked if I collected paper money and I told him that after collecting coins for forty years, I had started collecting National Bank notes from the ten towns I had lived in as I grew up and pursued my career. He told me I needed to collect obsolete notes from the cities too. He had to explain obsolete notes. Before I left his table, I had purchased a few obsolete notes from Chattanooga and Nashville as well as his book "The History of Early Tennessee Banks and their Issues".

Reading about Chattanooga obsolete notes, I became inspired and needed to collect one of each type of obsolete notes issued by the Chattanooga banks. I soon learned collecting obsolete bank notes was more difficult than collecting coins. With coins you could, purchase them as soon as you could afford them. My collection was limited by finding the notes for sale not my budget. As I pursued this goal, I quickly expanded it to all of the 100+ varieties from Chattanooga. Eventually, I decided to try to collect all Chattanooga numismatic items.

It was inevitable that I would meet Tom Carson who had been collecting Chattanooga obsolete, nationals and tokens for many years. He sold me some of his duplicates and and let me know whenever he located items I needed that he already had in his collection. Tom has acquired an extensive library of local history developed an understanding of the all the items he collects. He loaned me the books. We used the local library, which has an extensive local history section, to research some of the specifics about our obsolete notes.

Tom and I talked about writing an electronic book so we could include color images of all the numismatic items but still keep the price of book low enough to all be able to sell it. Both of us wanted to write a book about our numismatic items, but were too busy with our careers until I retired.

We find we get more pleasure our of knowing and sharing the background of what is in our collections than it just collecting and owning the items. We also have found we get nearly as much pleasure out of getting a scan of each others notes as owning the notes.

A number of collectors and dealers have contributed to the book. Carl Anderson conducted detailed research to find the information on the number of issued Atlantic & Western Railroad change bills. Gary Jenkins shared his draft detailed historical study of the Chattanooga city notes issued after the Civil War. Claud Murphy developed an understanding of number Atlantic & Western Railroad change bills printed on a sheet and the serial number sequence used on each sheet. Many people have contributed scans of the numismatic items for inclusion. Many dealers have allow us to record serial numbers of their notes for the census to allow us to forecasting the number of surviving notes.

Our intent is to include high quality color scans of all material that is available and to record and publish serial numbers of surviving notes. We need your help. If you have any of the following notes, we need scans or photographs. If you do not have the ability to scan or photograph the items, please contact us to work out a way to get your material included. Anyone contributing material will be credited. Also send us serial numbers, plate letter and grade of your notes for the census (Nationals, scrip, obsolete).

• Bank of Chattanooga Depression Scrip: $5, $10
• Chattanooga branch of Union Bank of Tennessee: G132, G133
• All Chattanooga 1870s City Scrip similar to G1298: $1, $2, $5, and $10
• Railroads to or through Chattanooga
• AL & TN: 20 cent with Receivers printed above vignette - unlisted
• East TN & GA: G1373, 1379
• Hiwassee: $3 G-1385
• Memphis & Charleston: G-1393, 1394
• Western & Atlantic: pre Civil War issues: 6 1/4 cent
• Wills Valley: G1495, G1498, 1508
• All company or private scrip from Chattanooga
• All scarce Chattanooga National Bank Notes