{"id":534339,"date":"2026-03-11T23:55:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T23:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/534339\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T23:55:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T23:55:11","slug":"how-a-stationery-store-owner-crashed-an-entire-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/534339\/","title":{"rendered":"How a stationery store owner crashed an entire economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Confederate States of America broke away from the US<\/a> during the Civil War<\/a>, the new nation began to print its own banknotes.One of those notes ended up in the hands of Samuel Upham, a Philadelphia<\/a> merchant.\"SamuelSamuel Upham forged so much counterfeit currency it broke the Confederate economy. (Public Domain)<\/p>\n

With the means to make copies of the new money, Upham began printing his own version to sell as souvenirs to curious northerners.<\/p>\n

Unlike in the loyal Northern states, the Confederacy did not have the technology to print high-quality currency.<\/p>\n

Instead, it was printed on what was effectively newsprint – cheap, simple and remarkably easy to duplicate.<\/p>\n

Upham’s duplicates were essentially identical to the Confederate legal tender, save for the note printed along the bottom: “Fac-simile Confederate Note \u2013 Sold wholesale and retail by S.C. Upham 403 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia”.<\/p>\n

He started to sell the dollars as souvenirs for a penny each.<\/p>\n

But he found people weren’t buying the cash as curiosities. Instead, buyers were seeking to buy his money in bulk.<\/p>\n

So he started printing more and more. For two US dollars, you could buy a hundred Confederate notes. You could buy a thousand for $15.<\/p>\n

\"SamuelSamuel Upham’s Confederate money had a small-print disclaimer at the bottom. (Public Domain)<\/p>\n

Savvy black market merchants were buying the money, snipping his name off the bottom, then using the cash to surreptitiously buy items in the South.<\/p>\n

The Confederacy was flooded with these bogus notes, indistinguishable from the real thing.<\/p>\n

The infusion of phony money caused massive inflation in the Confederacy at a time when a stable currency would be crucial to a budding new country.<\/p>\n

In little more than a year, a Confederate dollar’s value had fallen more than 90 per cent.<\/p>\n

Upham later estimated that three per cent of all cash in the Confederacy had been printed by his Philadelphia enterprise.<\/p>\n

The Confederate government was well aware of his exploits, with eager black marketeers sometimes forgetting to cut his name off the fake money.<\/p>\n

They ended up placing a $10,000 bounty on his head, though nobody attempted to murder him. Would-be assassins could buy that much money for $150 from the man himself.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe counterfeiting in the South led to hyperinflation. (Public Domain)<\/p>\n

And the US government in Washington considered charging Upham with forgery.<\/p>\n

But the United States<\/a> never formally recognised the Confederacy as a legitimate country. As far as the Treasury was concerned, Upham was printing fake money from a fake country.<\/p>\n

By late 1863, his business had dried up for the simple reason that he had been too successful.<\/p>\n

Confederate currency was so hyperinflated that nobody would accept it in the South.<\/p>\n

He returned to selling perfume and stationery two years before the war ended, having successfully crashed the Confederate economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Confederate States of America broke away from the US during the Civil War, the new nation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-534339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}