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Is there an eight dollar bill?

Question #97268. Asked by misskissed1.
Last updated May 13 2021.

Related Trivia Topics: Currencies  
truefaithmom star
Answer has 20 votes
Currently Best Answer
truefaithmom star
17 year member
240 replies

Answer has 20 votes.

Currently voted the best answer.
1) A very old form of Massachusetts currency included an $8 bill:

May 5, 1780 -- An emission of £394,000 ($1,313,333) in legal tender bills of credit payable in Spanish milled dollars with 5% interest by December 31, 1786. This issue was authorized pursuant to the Continental Congress Resolution of March 18, 1780. Printed by Hall and Sellers in Philadelphia using paper watermarked "United States." The front was printed in black with border cuts by Henry Dawkins. The back was printed in black and red with border cuts and emblems from the Continental Currency issue of January 14, 1779. The cuts surrounding the emblem are by Dawkins. Notes are sometimes surcharged in red "Interest paid one year" and usually hole canceled upon redemption. There are two signatures on the front and a guaranty signature on the back. Denominations issued were: $1, $2, $3, $4, $5, $7, $8 and $20.

link link http://www.frbsf.org/currency/independence/original/s05.html


2) Benjamin Franklin apparently designed an eight dollar bill.
Other of Franklin's bills bore similar political themes. The eight-dollar bill depicted a harp whose thirteen strings represented the various colonies. The motto, Majora Minoribus Consonant, asserted that "the greater and smaller ones sound together." Franklin further explained that the harp’s frame, which united the strings "in the most perfect harmony," symbolized the Continental Congress. Several months later, he again sought to reinforce American unity, this time by portraying the colonies as a chain of thirteen links, which appeared on Congress's half-dollar bill and other fractional notes.

It doesn't appear to have ever gotten into circulation:
Franklin’s vision for U.S. money was decidedly republican: it incorporated neither kings nor coats of arms but rather celebrated selfless deeds and laudable persons. The Confederation Congress never followed through on its plans to establish a mint and so it could not adopt Franklin’s idea for a new coinage. But over the long course of U.S. history, Franklin’s numismatic vision came to prevail, making it possible for the image of a former runaway, an ex-apprentice, by virtue of his public service, to grace our hundred-dollar bill.

3) There are currently no 8 dollar bills in any of the world's currencies.

Links below for each world dollar:
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Dollar
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_dollar
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Caribbean_dollar
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_dollar
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahamian_dollar
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbadian_dollar
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belize_dollar
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermudian_dollar
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunei_ringgit
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cayman_Islands_dollar
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_dollar
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fijian_dollar
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guyanese_dollar
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HKD
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaican_dollar
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberian_dollar
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysian_ringgit
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_dollar
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Taiwan_dollar
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinidad_and_Tobago_dollar
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_dollar

Response last updated by Terry on May 13 2021.
Jul 05 2008, 11:09 AM
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1cyprus star
Answer has 3 votes
1cyprus star
19 year member
190 replies avatar

Answer has 3 votes.
There used to be and a four and a six too

"Other of Franklin's bills bore similar political themes. The eight-dollar bill depicted a harp whose thirteen strings represented the various colonies. The motto, Majora Minoribus Consonant, asserted that "the greater and smaller ones sound together." Franklin further explained that the harp’s frame, which united the strings "in the most perfect harmony," symbolized the Continental Congress."


link http://common-place.org/article/benjamin-franklins-enriching-virtues/

Response last updated by Terry on Oct 06 2016.
Jul 05 2008, 11:11 AM
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