Silver certificates are a type of representative money issued between 1878 and 1964 in the United States as part of its circulation of paper currency. They were produced in response to silver agitation by citizens who were angered by the Coinage Act of 1873, which had effectively placed the United States on a gold standard. Since 1968, silver certificates have been redeemable only in Federal Reserve Notes and are thus obsolete, but they remain legal tender at their face value and hence are still an accepted form of currency. This 1928 one-dollar silver certificate, part of the National Numismatic Collection at the National Museum of American History, bears a portrait of George Washington and the signatures of Harold Theodore Tate (Treasurer of the United States) and Andrew Mellon (Secretary of the Treasury) on the obverse.

Banknote design credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; scanned by Andrew Shiva