Savings Bonds

Is anyone else on the forum interested in US savings bonds? There is a postal connection: savings bonds were initially sold "at retail" only over a post office counter - the post office was the original exclusive agent. And, of course, the 1940 and subsequent issues of postal savings, war savings, and savings stamps were primarily issued to facilitate savings towards bonds.

Had to share this one. Pre-Pearl Harbor bonds are quite scarce; this was a happy recent ebay find. There are two varieties of the Series E "defense" bonds - the early ones have rouletting at the top; the later ones at the left. Series A-D bonds are rare.

I don't collect these, but I find them very interesting (I like all BEP-printed securities, actually). The Bureau also produced a long-running series of souvenir cards that featured savings bonds and savings stamps -- I could post some of those if you like.

I was aware of these but first time to see one of any appreciable size! Nice find IMO!

Does that example have any redemption value??? (versus collector/catalog value??)

Savings bonds are only transferable to immediate heirs of the named purchaser, so effectively once they hit the open market the answer is no (even if they are unredeemed, as here). There are a couple "hoards" of cancelled bonds on the market - for the older bonds, the main hoard was from Oklahoma; there have been a lot of more recent bonds coming up on ebay recently from another source.

Here's a BEP souvenir card that features war savings stamps, exchangeable for savings bonds when you filled a booklet with a certain amount.