1854. Five Dollar note. The Union Bank, State of Georgia. Public Domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:5_Dollars_-_Augusta,_Union_B.,_Georgia,_USA_(02.09.1854)_Anything_Anywhere.jpg. USA, obsolete bank notes – From the end of the 18th century until the Civil War approximately all of the paper money in the United States of America was issued by private banks. There were thousands of them. It was a very confusing situation. You had to bring the note to the bank that issued it to get “real” money, which was coins. Sometimes that bank was nowhere to be found. Notes of this period are also called “broken bank notes” after the habit of many of those banks to go bust. The major reference is by Haxby. (Anything Anywhere).