The Joe I. Herbstman Memorial Collection of American Finance is first and foremost a primary source archive.  Within this collection you will find bonds, interest-bearing currency, and other federal documents relating to America's national debt: from the Revolutionary War era up until the 1980's.  The mission of this website is to organize this material in a manner that makes it accessible chronologically and thematically.

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Where possible, we do our best to provide some numismatic information about the pieces in this collection.  Please understand that an accurate census is often difficult for this type of material, as it was not traditionally saved and collected over generations.  Most of these pieces are quite rare as marketable US Government paper securities tend to be.  After redemption at banks or brokerage houses, paper securities were destroyed by the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve Banks.  Presented within this collection are some of the few remaining bonds to have survived American history.