“There is no Santa Claus in numismatics,” Lee F. Hewitt, founder and editor of the Numismatic Scrapbook, said. The reference was to coins advertised as bargains. If a coin price seemed too good to be true, the coin had some problems.

Yet there is a Santa Claus in numismatics; he and his reindeer prance across the face of several different types and denominations of bills from state-chartered banks. At the top right is a proof $50 note from the Bucksport (Maine) Bank, dated October 10, 1854; below is a well-used $2 note of the White Mountain Bank of Lancaster, New Hampshire—each with a full hitch of eight reindeer.

Several different vignettes of Santa were used on currency during the 1850s, illustrated and described by Roger H. Durand in Interesting Notes About Christmas. Collecting such motifs has formed a specialty for quite a few collectors, with the result that just about any Santa Claus note is apt to draw a lot of interest when offered on the market.

The Bucksport Bank Santa is by engraver George D. Baldwin and was engraved in 1854. The widespread popularity of Santa Claus and his reindeer stems from Clement C. Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” first published in the Troy, New York, Sentinel on December 22, 1823, and later known as “The Night Before Christmas.”