Mastro offered this fantastic uncut sheet of 1962 Civil War News Confederate currency inserts in its December 2006 Americana auction, describing it as a Topps sheet of 48 pieces.
The 22¾” x 28¾” sheet is arranged four across by 12 down, but those 48 pieces represent just 15 different currency designs. Mastro noted that nine designs appear four times each while six appear twice, suggesting that some of the currency inserts were short-printed.
But there’s something else about those 15 designs that Mastro didn’t mention.
The U.S. Topps checklist includes 17 different currency notes, while the British A&BC issue has only 15. And when I compared the sheet with a complete A&BC set sold by Heritage, I found that the 15 designs on the Mastro sheet match the 15 A&BC designs exactly.
The two additional notes found in the 17-piece Topps set, a $5 Type 3 and $20 Type 3, are absent from both.
So what exactly are we looking at?
Mastro identified the sheet as Topps, and perhaps it is. But its contents line up perfectly with the 15-note A&BC issue. Unfortunately, while Mastro specifically said the sheet was “fully printed on both sides,” they didn’t include a scan of the back. That really sucks, because I think the backs are the only way to distinguish the Topps and A&BC currency inserts.
Happy Collecting!
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