25 Dollars William Walker Military Script

William Walker, the Tennessee-born filibustero who seized control of Nicaragua in 1856 and had himself elected president, issued this military scrip through the press of his own English-language newspaper, El Nicaraguense, in Granada. It is among the very few examples of a private American mercenary operation producing sovereign currency — a detail that makes this note genuinely anomalous in any collection. Walker's administration lasted less than two years before a coalition of Central American forces drove him out in 1857; his currency never achieved anything close to stable acceptance.

The dry seal was the only concession to security. With a newspaper press as your mint, that was the available option.