Modern Texas Redback Gold Notes are being produced and sold by the Texas Bullion Depository. A lawsuit in federal court in Austin argues the state is moving to produce its own illegal currency. The original “redbacks” were promissory notes issued by the Republic of Texas between 1839 and 1840, so-called because of the red star on their reverse.
Comptroller of the State of Texas
A new Texas law to launch a gold-backed system of spending could complicate the state’s defense in a lawsuit over minting its own currency.
Though officials say the state is merely making collectible coins and notes, a gold-buying expert and Shiner-based business owner says Texas is gearing up to create its own money.
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Tarek Saab, CEO of Texas Precious Metals LLC, sued Acting Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock and the Texas Bullion Depository over a collectible coin and note program he says directly competes with private business. The program was launched last year under a 2019 law that allowed the sale of promotional items.
In an interview ahead of a Thursday federal court hearing, Saab alleged that effort, paired with a 2025 law that recognizes silver and gold as legal tender in Texas, is part of a bigger plan.
“If gold and silver are legal tender and a state institution is issuing coins, struck by the state of Texas, made from gold and silver, then the logic follows that what they’re doing or what they’re trying to do is issue money,” he said of the state.
Lawsuit challenges state coin program
The Texas Bullion Depository was created by the Legislature “to do one thing and one thing only — store precious metals such as gold and silver,” Saab said. Instead, it is acting like a commercial mint in competition with his business and others like it, using deceptive marketing, creating brand confusion and infringing on his company’s trademark.
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House Bill 1056 created the new law — sometimes described as a transactional gold law — that invites Texans to create their own accounts of gold and silver in the depository and spend those holdings with a debit card.
Saab said that bolsters his argument the state is moving toward making its own legal tender.
Hancock’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
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Gold as legal tender
Over the past decade, Texas officials have become increasingly interested in gold. Legislation authorizing the Texas Bullion Depository in 2015 aimed to “repatriate” the state’s investments in gold, in part to save fees for storing it elsewhere but also asserting the state’s financial sovereignty.
Then, last year, Texas took a step forward with HB 1056.
Rather than dropping off your gold at H-E-B in exchange for a six pack of Shiner, the bill’s yet-to-be-designed system would allow digital spending at current market rates for gold and silver. The state would administer the program and take a fee. Beyond keeping more gold in the state, it creates a revenue stream for the Leander-based depository, which legislators apparently think hasn’t been doing much.
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“The bill author has informed the committee that the Texas Bullion Depository has been largely underutilized,” a House subcommittee said in its analysis of the bill.
San Antonio Republican Rep. Mark Dorazio wrote the bill, which originally envisioned a more expansive and full-fledged gold-and-silver-based monetary system. Mineola Republican Sen. Bryan Hughes authored the Senate version, which was closer to what became law.
Acting Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock, seen here in September in San Antonio, launched Texas Lone Star Coins and Texas Redback Gold Notes, which are designed as authorized commemorative precious metal products through the Texas Bullion Depository.
Brenda Bazan/San Antonio Express-News contributor
It wasn’t a new idea; it has been supported in the past by several House and Senate members, including Comptroller Hancock when he was still a state senator representing Tarrant and Dallas counties. He became acting comptroller in late 2025.
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Gov. Greg Abbott put it this way on social media after making it official last June: “I signed a law authorizing Texans to use gold & silver as legal tender in day-to-day financial transactions.”
The new law fits with arguments made over the past two decades by advocates of currency backed by gold and silver and aligned with secessionist movements fueled by distrust of the Federal Reserve. Ownership of precious metals by individuals also has grown in popularity as inflationary spikes have occurred, eroding the value of the dollar.
HB 1056’s passage was publicly celebrated by The Texas Nationalist Movement, which advocates for the state’s secession from the U.S.
Legal limits on state-issued currency
The U.S. Constitution allows states to recognize gold and silver as legal tender but that’s as far as it goes. It explicitly bars them from printing or minting their own legal tender.
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In his current role, Hancock has gone from a legislative supporter to an executive implementer of the gold-backed system. And Saab says the state’s actions with notes and coins are going too far.
Sample deposits are displayed in June 2018 when the Texas Comptroller’s office announced the official opening of the Texas Bullion Depository.
Austin American-Statesman file photo
But the same law he points to as proof of its intent to mint money explicitly bars the state from doing so.
The enacted version of HB 1056 says any gold or silver tender “may not be imprinted, stamped, or otherwise marked with any name, symbol, or other information or design, including any suggestion that the specie [gold tender] has been minted or issued by a government.”
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While that may hamstring that part of Saab’s case, it also complicates continuing the collectible program the state has launched — and that’s Saab’s target.
Hancock’s office has said the depository’s Texas Lone Star Coins and Texas Redback Gold Notes are purely commemorative. But they do bear the map of Texas and a mint mark resembling the state.
In addition to infringing on Saab’s company trademarks, he says potential customers are confused by the state marketing a “modern” version of old state-backed currency.
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“By doing so, and as with the State of Texas Coins, Defendants are falsely promoting the Redbacks (commemorative notes) as legal tender and falsely advertising the Agency as a sovereign mint,” Texas Precious Metals argues. Saab’s company sells notes dubbed Goldbacks.
Thursday afternoon, Texas Precious Metals and Saab will ask U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra shut down the program until the case is resolved. The court last month declined to give the company a temporary restraining order.