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Anyone with access to a printing press and a variety of typefaces could produce a reasonable facsimile of colonial paper notes. In the 18th century, governments did not have access to the kinds of special inks, paper and computerized printing techniques that make money difficult to copy. treasury periodically changes the design of our money in order to make counterfeiting more difficult. This is a problem even today, and the U.S. Paper notes also were very easy to counterfeit. Merchants might offer different rates for two notes of the same face value because some colonies’ money was considered to be more valuable and trustworthy than others. Even though these currencies typically were denominated in pounds, shillings and pence, they were not all equivalent in actual value. By the 1750s there were several different colonial paper currencies circulating in North America. The use of paper money in Virginia and other colonies created a whole new set of problems however. They functioned like currency though, and were used to pay public and private debts.
![us coins from the 1700s us coins from the 1700s](https://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/150327145955-1792-birch-cent-640x360.jpg)
Strictly speaking, Virginia paper notes weren’t really currency they were bills of credit backed by the colony, to be paid off out of future tax revenues. Virginia’s first paper money came out in 1755 to help finance the colony’s involvement in the French and Indian War. Some other colonies began to both issue paper currency and mint coins in the 17th century, but Virginia didn’t start making its own money until the latter part of the 18th century. Large planters in particular shipped their tobacco to British-based trading firms, who by and large paid not in money but in credit.
![us coins from the 1700s us coins from the 1700s](https://dygtyjqp7pi0m.cloudfront.net/i/24016/21925777_1.jpg)
Virginians made do with a mixture of foreign coins, mostly from Spain’s American colonies, some paper money printed for other British colonies, and various sorts of bills of credit, that is, private fiscal obligations backed by individual merchants. The amount of British coin and currency circulating in the colony was small compared to the volume of business that had to be transacted. When in 1773 a large quantity of counterfeit Virginia currency appeared in circulation, the colonial government replaced treasury notes issued earlier with hastily prepared promissory notes written on pre-printed James River Bank forms.ĭuring the colonial era there was a constant shortage of ready money in Virginia. AfterWARd: The Revolutionary Veterans Who Built America.Blast from the Past: Artillery in the War of Independence.TENACITY: Women in Jamestown and Early Virginia.18th National Exhibition of the American Society of Marine Artists.African Americans and the American Revolution.American Revolution Museum at Yorktown Galleries.About the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Inc.American Revolution Museum at Yorktown: The Transformation.FOCUSED: A Century of Virginia Indian Resilience.Summer Teacher Institute for Virginia Teachers.