DALLAS - An art collector has paid about $2.3 million for a $1,000 bill printed in 1890, according to the auction house that brokered the transaction between two anonymous private collectors.

This undated photo released by the Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas shows the face and back of a $1000 bill that is one of only two known of its kind.  [AP]

"This $1,000 bill is one of only two known of its type; the other surviving example is in the museum at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco," Greg Rohan, president of Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries, said Friday.

Rohan said that type of bank note is known to collectors as a "Grand Watermelon" because the green-striped zeros in the denomination "1,000" printed on the back of the bill look like the fruit.

"Only two Grand Watermelon examples are known with red-color Treasury Department seals printed on the front; the half-dozen other surviving Grand Watermelon notes have brown seals," he said in a news release.

The $2,255,000 price is more than double the previous record for an 1890 Grand Watermelon note. The previous record for any bank note was $2.1 million, according to the Heritage Auction Galleries.

Rohan said the buyer was "a very advanced and sophisticated East Coast collector of art and rare currency."