Previous optical studies found an unexpected deficit of bars at z > 
0.7 .
To investigate the effects of bandshifting , we have studied the fraction of barred spirals in the NICMOS Deep Field North .
At z > 
0.7 we find at least four barred spirals , doubling the number previously detected .
The number of barred galaxies is small because these ( and previous ) data lack adequate spatial resolution .
A typical 5 kpc bar at z > 0.7 is only marginally detectable for WFPC2 at 0.8 \micron ; the NICMOS data have even lower resolution and can only find the largest bars .
The average size of the four bars seen at z > 0.7 is 12 kpc .
The fraction of such large bars ( 4/95 ) is higher than that seen in nearby spirals ( 1/44 ) ; all known selection effects suggest that the observed fraction is a lower limit .
However , important caveats such as small numbers and difficulties in defining comparable samples at high and low redshifts should be noted .
We conclude that there is no significant evidence for a decrease in the fraction of barred spirals beyond z \sim 0.7 .