 CONTINENTAL CONGRESS JANUARY 14, 1779 HIGHER DENOMINATION COUNTERFEIT DETECTOR NOTES. Thirty Dollars, Thirty-five Dollars, Fifty-five Dollars, and Sixty Dollars. All are Blue Paper Counterfeit Detector Notes. Paper watermarked 'CONFEDE/RATION' as used on issued notes. Face motifs and mottoes as used on all prior issue dates with orange left border cut and vignette detail. New face border cut left and top with 'THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA'. Nature print backs. Average Extremely Fine. The $30 with wide sheet edge on bottom; the $35 with wide right margin; the $55 with wide left edge; and the $60 toned on the face with sharp sheet fold. Back edge period pen notation ''Captured at Charleston''. Interesting and scarcer group of detector bills. No sheets of this detector issue in the Ford-Boyd Collection Part VI Sale in October, 2004. 4 pieces.
Ex F.C.C. Boyd Estate.
The Sixty Dollars detector (if the endorsement is to be believed) was captured by the British after their siege of Charleston, S.C. in 1780. After that siege, Peter Timothy, the South Carolina printer, was captured and eventually exchanged (later to die in a shipwreck). Captured detector notes (See Ford Part VI, lot 519, page 142), since they were printed from genuine plates, could be used to style forgeries. At this point, the British did not have to concern itself with counterfeiting the Continental Currency by copying from a detector bill. The currency, depreciating rapidly as it was, did the undermining work for them.
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