During the instability of the early years of the Civil War, banks suspended specie payment, which is to say that paper could no longer be redeemed for its face value in hard gold or silver. The effect of this legislation was to almost immediately drive coins of every denomination out of circulation, as they became hoarded as "hard assets". Thus, with no small change left to facilitate commerce, Treasurer Spinner recommended, and Congress passed the Act of July 17, 1862 to authorize issuance of fractional currency notes in the denominations of 5, 10, 25 and 50 cents.
Although the fractional currency emission was intended to address a need for change brought on by the Civil War, the notes were issued through 1876.
According to A Collector's Guide to Postage & Fractional Currency (Rob Kravitz, 2nd edition, 2012), the Treasury Department created fractional shields for a period of one year beginning in June, 1867.
They were produced without frames, and distributed to banks "free of express charges at $4.50 each". Shields were stored in the basement of the treasury and many became water damaged. A total of 3,263 were issued, with unsold shields destroyed at the end of 1869.
Three background colors were used for the shields, and Kravitz offers the following rarity estimates for:
grey background 200 - 400 known
pink background 20 - 25 known
green background 10 - 14 known
Per the Kravitz book:
"A large shield was engraved on heavy paper. Above the shield is an arrangement of thirteen stars and an eagle on top. The shields are made up of 39 closely trimmed, narrow margin proofs. There are 20 fronts and 19 backs. They are from the first three issues and also the Grant/Sherman notes that were not issued.
All shields display four notes with autographed signatures: 50-cent Justice, which is in the first row; 50-cent Spinner, in the second row; the 15-cent Grant/Sherman in the fourth row; and the 10-cent Washington in the sixth row. The green and pink shields (the earliest made) have Colby and Spinner autographs on all four hand-signed notes. The grey shields never have Colby and Spinner signatures on the Grant/Sherman examples."
The usual line of reasoning is that the shields were created as a tool to help curtail circulation of counterfeit notes. In theory, the notes on the shield would serve as a reference against which a bank employee could compare offered examples.
We present for your consideration here a pink example for which "grade" is not really a sensible factor in the sense of determining value. According to the current owner, Kravitz has suggested that the level of preservation is about average, with perhaps ten in finer condition, and ten in condition not as nice. The shield is mounted in a pleasing frame that appears to be of 20th century origin, and the glass is clear and in good condition, which means the shield can be mounted just as-is.