Fr. 64. 1869 $5 Legal Tender Note. PMG Choice Uncirculated 64 EPQ.

Fr. 64. 1869 $5 Legal Tender Note. PMG Choice Uncirculated 64 EPQ.，Another entry in the "Rainbow" note series and a fine mate to the $1 and $2 examples in the same grade offered earlier in the Vanderbilt Collection. This note offers nice color (the feature the type is best known for), and it is fairly well centered with broad margins all around. As with all of the Series of 1869 notes, this was issued for less than five years, from October 19, 1869 through July 25, 1874. <p><p>This type represents the first appearance of Andrew Jackson on federal currency, and this portrait style remains in use today with modifications. The image was engraved by Alfred Sealey after Thomas Sullys original 1845 painting. The original painting is owned by the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., and was gifted to the institution by Andrew W. Mellon, the one-time Treasury secretary and a signatory on one of the National bank notes offered later in the Vanderbilt Collection (The Mellon National Bank of Pittsburgh, 1902 $5 Red Seal).<p><p>This was also the first series to feature the vignette <em>Pioneer </em>(also referred to as "Pioneer Family"), for which this style is generally named (though it is often alternatively referred to as a "woodchopper" note by some collectors). The central vignette was engraved by Henry Gugler and thematically it embodied the spirit of the "Westward course of Empire" movement, something very much on the minds of many Americans at the time. The nation was increasingly expanding into Native American territories, sometimes meeting strong resistance that led to unpleasant accounts in the East. Relationships with the Native peoples had once been depicted popularly as matters of "Peace and Friendship," although actions were often exploitative. By 1880, that idea had long since been abandoned in favor of themes of assimilation or re-education in what was deemed by Euro-Americans as civility versus the savage. This vignette illustrates the resolve of the western settlers, but not without some reservation, or perhaps even fear, in the eyes of the mother at left. Westward expansion brought with it substantial uncertainty.<p>，From the A.J. Vanderbilt Collection.，