This is an original $500 bond issued by the Confederate States of America in 1863, one of 56,417 authorized under the Act of February 20, 1863, and one of the few that still survives. The certificate is printed in olive green ink by B. Duncan of Richmond, and bears the portrait of Christopher G. Memminger, Secretary of the Confederate Treasury, shown in formal attire. You will receive the exact piece shown.

The certificate is printed in black ink by B. Duncan of Richmond, and bears the portrait of Christopher G. Memminger, Secretary of the Confederate Treasury, shown in formal attire. The elaborate engraved border carries decorative corner rosettes containing the denomination "500." Four coupons remain attached, unclipped, meaning the bond's interest was never collected.

Catalog references: Criswell 124 · Ball 192 Act: February 20, 1863 Denomination: $500 Interest rate: 7% per annum Printer: B. Duncan, Richmond, VA Coupons: 4 attached, unclipped Condition notes: Age-toned; wear consistent with period paper

In February 1863, the Confederate Congress had already authorized several rounds of war financing, and each one had proven insufficient. The Act of February 20, 1863 was the Confederacy's largest single bond authorization, intended to raise tens of millions of dollars to sustain an army fighting on multiple fronts. It produced the highest-volume bonds of the entire Confederate fiscal program.

The man on this certificate, Christopher G. Memminger, was the architect of Confederate finance. A Charleston lawyer and former South Carolina state legislator, he served as Treasury Secretary from the Confederacy's founding in February 1861 through June 1864, when he resigned under pressure as the financial situation deteriorated beyond repair. He managed an impossible task: funding a four-year war with no established banking infrastructure, no reliable tax base, and a naval blockade that strangled exports and choked off foreign exchange. Bonds like this one were his primary instrument. They were sold to Southern civilians, planters, and merchants, with a promise of repayment in coin after Confederate independence.

That independence never came. Under Section 4 of the 14th Amendment (ratified 1868), the United States explicitly prohibited honoring any Confederate debt. Every bond became worthless overnight.

Confederate bonds cataloged under the Ball system (the current dealer standard) and Criswell numbers are the two references used by serious collectors and auction houses. Cr. 124 / Ball 192 is well-documented, with a known issuance of 56,417, but historically significant as a centerpiece of the Confederacy's largest financing effort.

Civil War financial documents are among the most compelling artifacts in American scripophily: primary sources from the economic machinery of a war that defined the nation. Offered as a collectible.