39 of 100: Early American currency

In the book I'm proofreading, I had to flag an image of early US currency, created by Benjamin Franklin—who, you will recall, was a printer by trade. (See if you can figure out why I flagged it.)

But the mention of "nature printing" in the caption got me curious, so I had to go searching. And I found that Franklin did print currency, and he used actual leaves, to thwart counterfeiters. Here's a sheet from 1779 (I believe it's the image I should have seen): 

It's unclear to me exactly how this would deter counterfeiters—couldn't they simply make their own one-of-a-kind nature prints and call them legit? But whatever. The currency itself is gorgeous. (Here is an article titled "What Ben Franklin Learned While Fighting Counterfeiters," with a few more examples of his work—and, perhaps, an answer to that question.)

Note the warning: To Counterfeit, is DEATH

Then, of course, I started looking at other very early currency. And it, too, is beautiful. So here are some examples, from each of the original 13 colonies—one side each, except at the end (click to see them large):

South Carolina

Rhode Island

Pennsylvania

North Carolina

New York

Connecicut

Massachusetts

Maryland

Delaware

Georgia

New Jersey

Virginia

New Hampshire (recto)

New Hampshire (verso)

And to go even earlier, and in metal, here are some pine tree shillings from 1652:

For more on Early American Currency, I send you to Wikipedia, my best friend.