Description and research notes
This specimen represents an official municipal tax anticipation note issued by the City of Asbury Park, New Jersey, dated March 31, 1934, and denominated Five Dollars. Explicitly titled TAX ANTICIPATION NOTE OF 1934 and prominently labeled RECOVERY BOND, the instrument forms part of a coordinated municipal financing program implemented during the most severe phase of the Great Depression, when local governments faced acute revenue shortfalls and escalating insolvency risk.
Tax anticipation notes were legally sanctioned debt instruments designed to convert expected tax revenues into immediate operating capital. In early 1934, municipalities such as Asbury Park relied on these instruments to maintain essential civic functions, meet payroll obligations, and sustain public services while awaiting the collection of property and other local taxes. This issue was authorized pursuant to Chapter 192 of the Laws of 1917 of the State of New Jersey, as amended, situating it within an established statutory framework rather than an improvised emergency measure.
The engraved legal text states that the City of Asbury Park, a municipal corporation of the State of New Jersey, for value received acknowledges itself indebted and promises to pay to bearer the sum of Five Dollars. The note was issued at the office of the City Treasurer and does not bear interest prior to maturity, reflecting its intended role as a short-term obligation to be redeemed or offset promptly against incoming tax receipts. It is expressly acceptable in payment for and discharge of any taxes thereafter payable to the city, reinforcing its function as both a debt instrument and a fiscal settlement medium.
The text further certifies that the total amount authorized to be borrowed by the city through tax anticipation notes under the governing statute was three hundred sixty thousand dollars, and that the amount outstanding, including this issue, did not exceed that statutory ceiling. It also affirms compliance with all constitutional and statutory debt limitations, a declaration intended to preserve confidence at a time when municipal defaults were widespread and public trust in local finance was fragile.
The obverse is executed in orange engraved security printing by E. A. Wright Bank Note Company of Philadelphia, a prominent American security printer specializing in municipal and financial instruments. The design features bold municipal titling, denomination counters, and a large engraved corporate seal of Asbury Park, visually asserting legal authority and institutional continuity amid economic instability. The serial number B0000 and the overprinted word SPECIMEN identify this example as a printer-issued specimen produced for authorization, approval, or archival reference rather than for circulation.
The reverse presents an engraved panoramic vignette of the Asbury Park waterfront and boardwalk, visually anchoring the obligation to the city’s identity as a coastal resort municipality whose economy was particularly vulnerable to the collapse in tourism and discretionary spending during the Depression. The prominent inclusion of the words RECOVERY BOND reflects the political and fiscal intent of the issue: to signal active municipal recovery efforts rather than passive debt accumulation.
Specimen examples of tax anticipation notes were produced in extremely limited quantities and typically retained only temporarily within printer or municipal files once an issue was authorized. Unlike issued notes, which were redeemed, cancelled, and destroyed in the normal course of fiscal operations, specimens had no operational role and survived only by circumstance.
No other specimen example of this City of Asbury Park Five Dollars Tax Anticipation Note of 1934 is documented in institutional collections, auction records, certification census data, or standard reference literature. Based strictly on observed and recorded evidence, this piece stands as a unique surviving specimen and serves as a definitive documentary artifact of Depression-era municipal finance and recovery policy in the United States.