WWII
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WWII
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One of my other hobbies, aside from memorabilia collecting is geneaology. My great-uncle Frank was a two-time Purple Heart recipient during WWII. He didn’t like to talk about the war. If he talked sports, it was mainly about Football and Baseball. Otherwise he was just your normal uncle. When I was about five, I remember getting a stand punching bag from him, for Christmas. Frank passed away in 1996, due to pancreatic cancer. About a year or so ago, I’m searching newspapers.com and I pull up the above photo. Frank fought (and from the photo it seems pretty well, lol) in the Golden Gloves tournament…He never told anyone. I asked my aunt about it and she was in disbelief when she saw the photo. We joked that he likely didn’t tell anyone because if his mother (my great-grandmother) found out she would have beaten him worse than any boxer could have (I’m being facetious, lol), but she would have disapproved from what I heard of her. I would have loved to have talked boxing with him, but again, he never said a word. In a way, his purchasing of the stand punching bag for a Christmas present for me, was a way for him to maintain his secret but give a slight nod to his “shadow” boxing endeavors. Knowing this now is bittersweet, but I will remember that Christmas gift and my uncle “the boxer”, every holiday season and every time I look at this picture! Thank you all for letting me share!
In
polo
Nov 4
Edited
US $1 Silver Certificate Federal Reserve note, 1935A series, Hawaiian overprint, star note.
Issued in 1942 in the run-up to WWII hostilities with Japan.
One of my favorite kinds of bills for the story they tell.
Wikipedia:
"A Hawaii overprint note is one of a series of banknotes (one silver certificate and three Federal Reserve Notes) issued during World War II as an emergency issue after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The intent of the overprints was to easily distinguish United States dollars captured by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in the event of an invasion of Hawaii and render the notes worthless."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_overprint_note
In the end, about $35 million Hawaiian overprint $1 notes were issued. They were withdrawn (rendered not legal tender) in 1946, so most got returned in advance for legal bills, and the rest remaining stopped exchanging hands in the economy.
This one is further rare in that it is a "star" note (first digit in the serial is '*'). Those were printed in the event there were errors during printing, in which case the star note(s) of the same serial number (but with the initial '*' in lieu of the run letter) were inserted for circulation instead of the error notes keeping the serial number sequence continuous in spite of the pulled error notes. Of the $35M printed of $1 notes, only 196,000 star notes were used, in five distinct serial number blocks. So, not so common. This one happens to be from the largest of the blocks (72,000 notes)
I finally picked this one up last week. Paid top price for its condition, but having a good year and tired of waiting and getting outbid, lol.
There are also North African overprint notes with the same basic story but for the European conflict. Total number of those $1 notes issued was almost $27 million, and only 180,000 star notes were used, but they are much rarer for some reason. I'm guessing being in North Africa, fewer people hung on to the discontinued notes for collecting?







