official journal of The Society of Paper Money Collectors Vignette and Other Engraving Varieites on 1875 Series Notes 1550 Scenic Avenue, Suite 150, Costa Mesa, CA 92626 • 800.458.4646 470 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022 • 800.566.2580 • NYC@StacksBowers.com 1735 Market Street, Suite 130, Philadelphia, PA 19103 • 800.840.1913 • Philly@StacksBowers.com Info@StacksBowers.com • StacksBowers.com California • New York • Philadelphia • New Hampshire • Oklahoma • Hong Kong • Paris SBG PM Spring2022 220301 America’s Oldest and Most Accomplished Rare Coin Auctioneer LEGENDARY COLLECTIONS | LEGENDARY RESULTS | A LEGENDARY AUCTION FIRM Contact Us for More Information Today! 800.458.4646 West Coast • 800.566.2580 East Coast • Info@StacksBowers.com The Stack’s Bowers Galleries Spring 2022 Showcase Auction T-2. Confederate Currency. 1861 $500. PMG Very Fine 25. Fr. 314. 1886 $20 Silver Certificate. PCGS Banknote Choice Uncirculated 64. T-3. Confederate Currency. 1861 $100. PMG Choice Uncirculated 63. Fr. 260. 1886 $5 Silver Certificate. PMG Gem Uncirculated 65 EPQ. Fr. 355. 1890 $2 Treasury Note. PMG Gem Uncirculated 66 EPQ. Fr. 63a. 1863 $5 Legal Tender Note. PMG Gem Uncirculated 66 EPQ. Fr. 2200-Idgs. 1928 $500 Federal Reserve Note. Minneapolis. PMG Choice Uncirculated 64 EPQ. Fr. 613. White Plains, New York. $10 1902 Red Seal. First National Bank. Charter #6351. PMG Very Fine 20. Fr. 598. Ossining, New York. $5 1902 Plain Back. First NB & TC. Charter #471. PMG Choice About Unc. 58EPQH. Serial Number 1. Auction: April 5-8, 2022 • Costa Mesa, CA FEATURED HIGHLIGHTS 108 Vignette & Other Engraving Varieties--Peter Huntoon Bankers Go for Outing-Wind Up in Jail--Nick Bruyer Major Upham's Coupons--Terry Bryan Circulation of the State Bank of Iowa--James Ehrhardt Sears Customer Profit Sharing Certificates--Loren Gatch 124 86 116 120 133 Wooden Nickles--Clifford Thies 135 The Mauch Chunk National Bank--Michael Saharian SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 81 Columns Advertisers SPMC Hall of Fame The SPMC Hall of Fame recognizes and honors those individuals who have made a lasting contribution to the society over the span of many years.  Charles Affleck Walter Allan Doug Ball Joseph Boling F.C.C. Boyd Michael Crabb Forrest Daniel Martin Delger William Donlon Roger Durand C. John Ferreri Milt Friedberg Robert Friedberg Len Glazer Nathan Gold Nathan Goldstein James Haxby John Herzog Gene Hessler John Hickman William Higgins Ruth Hill Peter Huntoon Don Kelly Lyn Knight Chet Krause Allen Mincho Clifford Mishler Judith Murphy Dean Oakes Chuck O’Donnell Roy Pennell Albert Pick Fred Reed Matt Rothert Herb & Martha Schingoethe Hugh Shull Glenn Smedley Raphael Thian Daniel Valentine Louis Van Belkum George Wait D.C. Wismer Robert Vandevender 83 Benny Bolin 84 Frank Clark 85 138 From Your President Editor Sez New Members Uncoupled Obsolete Corner Joe Boling & Fred Schwan Robert Gill 146 Quartermaster Column Michael McNeil 148 152 154 Cherry Pickers Corner Chump Change Loren Gatch Robert Calderman Stacks Bowers Galleries IFC Pierre Fricke 81 PMG Currency 107 Lyn Knight 115 Richard Whitmire 119 ANA 145 Denly's of Boston 155 Evangelisti 155 Higgins Museum 155 Vern Potter 156 Fred Bart 156 FCCB 156 Bob Laub 156 157PCDA Heritage Auctions OBC Fred Schwan Neil Shafer SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 82 Officers & Appointees ELECTED OFFICERS PRESIDENT rvpaperman@aol.com VICE-PRES/SEC'Y Robert Calderman gacoins@earthlink.net TREASURER Robert Moon robertmoon@aol.com BOARD OF GOVERNORS Mark Anderson mbamba@aol.com Robert Calderman gacoins@earthlink.net Gary Dobbins g.dobbins@sbcglobal.net Matt Drais stockpicker12@aol.com Mark Drengson markd@step1software.com Pierre Fricke aaaaaaaaaaaapierrefricke@buyvintagemoney.com Loren Gatch lgatch@uco.edu William Litt Billlitt@aol.com J. Fred Maples maplesf@comcast.net Cody Regennitter cody.regennitter@gmail.com Wendell Wolka purduenut@aol.com APPOINTEES EDITOR Benny Bolin smcbb@sbcglobal.net ADVERTISING MANAGER Wendell Wolka Purduenut@aol.com LIBRAIAN Jeff Brueggeman jeff@actioncurrency.com MEMBERSHIP DIRECTOR Frank Clark IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT Shawn Hewitt WISMER BOOk PROJECT COORDINATOR Pierre Fricke From Your President Robert Vandevender II From Your President Shawn Hewitt Paper Money * July/August 2020 6 Robert Vandevender II LEGAL COUNSEL Megan Regennitter Megan.regenniter@mwhlawgroup.com frank_clark@yahoo.com Greetings: 2022 appears to be off to a great numismatic start with the SPMC fully engaged in moving forward as coin and currency shows return. Thanks to several of our board members, we successfully staffed a club table at the January FUN Show in Orlando, at the Houston Show, and I plan to join Vice President Robert Calderman at our club table during the Long Beach show. I would like to share some great news. At our February board meeting, the SPMC board voted unanimously to hold our next annual meeting during an upcoming show scheduled for a few months away. We are planning for this show to be accompanied by the many events we have held in the past such as exhibit judging, award presentations, a Hall of Fame Dinner, and our well-known SPMC Breakfast with the associated fund-raising raffle. We will, of course, be seeking the services of Governor Wendell Wolka to emcee that raffle and I am confident he will be up to the task of providing a little entertainment as the numbers are drawn. Once again, we will be asking for item donations from members and dealers for the event. If Wendell were here, he would likely tell you to get your winning number requests in early!! The planning for these events is just now starting with much to be done so don’t jump the gun too much until we get some arrangements in place. Watch for more details in the next Paper Money issue. Last month, the SPMC received a generous contribution from the National Currency Foundation to help the SPMC continue its research activities and publication of many great articles in the Paper Money magazine. We look forward to many exciting new articles in this upcoming year from many of our authors and expect to see big things once again from our Hall of Fame member Peter Huntoon. For those of you on social media, I hope you are having the chance to see the Facebook “SPMC Note of the Day” provided by member Andy Timmerman. I always enjoy seeing what he comes up with for the daily post. Postal Notes were the flavor of today’s post. If you are not seeing our Note of the Day, be sure to find our “Society of Paper Money Collectors” Facebook page and click the thumbs-up like icon so the content appears in your feed. With the help of Governor Mark Drengson, the SPMC continues working on the development of and sponsorship of a “Collecting Paper Money” wiki website and Bank Note History Project. Later this year, we expect to make the link available to both members and the public. We continue to seek help from our membership to contribute to the content development. Please contact us if you would like to help. Another great effort underway is the development of short educational videos. The first of those videos has been developed by Governor Loren Gatch with help from college students and is currently being reviewed. The subject for this first video is Depression Script and, I must admit, I learned quite a bit while watching it. At some point, we will be providing a link to this and upcoming videos on our website as well as offering them as an outreach to other collector clubs to provide an entry level insight into the various paper money collecting areas. I urge you to check it out when it is posted. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 83 Terms and Conditions  The Society  of  Paper Money  Collectors  (SPMC)  P.O.   Box 7055,  Gainesville, GA    30504, publishes    PAPER    MONEY (USPS   00‐ 3162)  every  other  month  beginning  in  January.  Periodical  postage  is  paid  at  Hanover,  PA.  Postmaster  send  address  changes  to  Secretary  Robert  Calderman,  Box  7055, Gainesville,  GA  30504. ©Society  of  Paper Money  Collectors, Inc.  2020.  All  rights  reserved.  Reproduction  of  any  article  in whole  or  part  without written approval  is prohibited.  Individual copies of  this  issue of PAPER MONEY are available  from the secretary  for $8  postpaid. Send changes of address, inquiries concerning    non    ‐    delivery    and    requests    for    additional copies of this issue to  the secretary.  MANUSCRIPTS  Manuscripts     not     under      consideration      elsewhere and  publications  for  review should be sent  to  the editor. Accepted  manuscripts  will  be  published  as  soon  as  possible,  however  publication  in  a  specific  issue  cannot  be guaranteed. Opinions  expressed  by  authors  do  not necessarily  reflect those  of  the  SPMC.   Manuscripts should be  submitted  in WORD  format  via  email (smcbb@sbcglobal.net)  or  by  sending memory stick/disk  to  the  editor.  Scans  should  be  grayscale  or  color  JPEGs  at  300 dpi. Color  illustrations may be changed to grayscale at  the  discretion  of  the  editor.  Do  not  send  items  of  value.  Manuscripts are  submitted with copyright release of the author  to  the  editor  for  duplication  and  printing as needed.  ADVERTISING  All advertising on space available basis. Copy/correspondence  should be sent to editor.  All advertising is pay in advance.  Ads are on a “good faith”  basis.  Terms are “Until Forbid.”  Ads  are  Run  of  Press  (ROP)  unless  accepted  on  a  premium  contract basis. Limited premium space/rates available.  To keep rates to a minimum, all advertising must be prepaid  according to the schedule below.  In exceptional cases where  special  artwork  or  additional  production  is  required,  the  advertiser  will be notified  and  billed accordingly.  Rates  are  not commissionable; proofs are not  supplied.  SPMC  does not  endorse any company, dealer,  or  auction  house.  Advertising  Deadline: Subject to space availability, copy must be received  by  the  editor  no  later  than  the  first  day  of  the  month  preceding  the  cover date  of  the  issue  (i.e.  Feb.  1  for  the  March/April  issue). Camera‐ready art or electronic ads  in pdf  format are required.  ADVERTISING RATES  Editor Sez Benny Bolin What A Start! 2022 is certainly off to a great start. I was able to attend the January FUN show and it really was fun, fun, fun. I was only there for Friday and Saturday but being back to a major show was great. I only spent $70 on three small fractional manuscript notes but at this stage of my collecting career, going to shows is mostly about renewing friendships and catching up! FUN is a very well run show and my hat is off to the organizers for making this a most memorable experience. The SPMC had a general meeting with a nice presentation by Robert Calderman. Many wonderful exhibits were placed with a strong show by paper collectors. Dennis Schafluetzel, Bob Moon and Jerry Fochtman were all winners—congratulations! Speaking of shows, the SPMC board of governors had a meeting in February and we voted to once again bring back our normal IPMS activities, including the general membership meeting, breakfast with award presentations and the Tom Bain raffle (mix ‘em up!) featuring our own incomparable and always enjoyable emcee Wendell Wolka! Be on the look out for more details as to when and where coming soon. It is my sad duty to inform you of yet another stalwart of the society’s passing—Roger Durand. Roger served the society in many capacities and literally wrote the book on Rhode Island obsoletes and a series on vignettes which I have used a lot in my collecting of South Carolina vignettes. Roger will be missed. I am still in need of new articles, especially those of 1-5 pages. As you can see from the last few issues, I have a good supply of larger articles, but need those shorter ones. Articles written by our members are what make our publication great! I have to tell on myself for two kinda faux pas. The first was in the FUN auction. There was a fractional note with an inverted surcharge that this example is only the second known. I fought for it and in my opinion overpaid but I really wanted it. I got it and when it arrived, I was looking at it and guess what? I found the other known one in MY OWN COLLECTION! The other happened just a couple of weeks ago in a Tuesday night HA auction. I had just found an invert that I did not have and wanted it. But, I was bowling as a sub for my wife's and son's team and it came up for auction but it was my time to bowl. So, I told my wife and son to bid for me to a max of $300. And boy did they. I could see they were having from the lane and were they ever! To the tune of almost $600! Said they got caught up with auction fever! Oh well, at least the consignor was happy. Until next issue! Be safe, have fun and love those notes! Required file    submission format    is    composite    PDF v1.3  (Acrobat 4.0   compatible).   If   possible, submitted files should  conform to ISO 15930‐1: 2001 PDF/X‐1a file format standard.  Non‐  standard,  application,  or  native  file  formats  are  not  acceptable. Page  size: must  conform to specified publication  trim  size.  Page  bleed:  must  extend minimum  1/8”  beyond  trim for page head, foot, and front.  Safety margin:  type  and  other  non‐bleed  content must  clear  trim by minimum 1/2”.   Advertising c o p y   shall be restricted to paper currency, allied  numismatic material, publications,   and   related   accessories.    The SPMC  does  not  guarantee advertisements,  but  accepts  copy  in good faith,  reserving  the right  to  reject objectionable  or  inappropriate  material  or  edit      copy.  The          SPMC   assumes      no      financial       responsibility for  typographical  errors  in  ads  but  agrees  to  reprint  that portion of an ad  in  which a typographical error occurs.  Benny Space  Full color covers  1 Time  $1500  3 Times  $2600  6 Times $4900 B&W covers  500  1400  2500 Full page color  500  1500  3000 Full page B&W  360  1000  1800 Half‐page B&W  180  500  900 Quarter‐page B&W  90  250  450 Eighth‐page B&W  45  125  225 SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 84 WELCOME TO OUR NEW MEMBERS! BY FRANK CLARK SPMC MEMBERSHIP DIRECTOR NEW MEMBERS 01/05/2022 15370 Thomas Mendenhall, R Calderman 15371 Steven Moore, Rbt Calderman 15372 George W. Goodlow, BNR Ad 15373 Lindsay Robertson, Website 15374 Kippen Wills, Website 15375 Stan Ryckman, Website 15376 Jason Kaar, Frank Clark 15377 Gerald Naylor, Website 15378 Stefan Jovanovich, Website 15379 Dale White, Frank Clark 15380 Chris Seuntjens, Frank Clark 15381 Bret Bryson, Rbt Calderman 15382 Stephen Yozaites, Website NAME CORRECTION 15367 Raymond Lam REINSTATEMENTS None LIFE MEMBERSHIPS LM460 Chris Bulfinch, Website NEW MEMBERS 02/05/2022 15383 Brent Sobol, Frank Clark 15384 Steve Costner, John A. Parker 15385 Bernard Ososky, John Bremer 15386 Marshall Mallory, Frank Clark 15387 Kert Phillips, Frank Clark 15388 William Adney, ANA Ad 15389 Andrew Pappacoda, Frank Clark 15390 Josh Mathely, Rbt Calderman 15391 Tyson Flugstad, Rbt Calderman 15392 Carter McDonald, Rbt Calderman 15393 James Adams, Website 15394 Sullivan Labno, Fricke/Hewitt 15395 Robert Mellichamp, Gary Dobbins 15396 Imtiaz Khokhar, Website 15397 Robert Bruner, Facebook 15398 John Smith, Rbt Calderman 15399 Joe Lewis, Website REINSTATEMENTS None LIFE MEMBERSHIPS None Dues Remittal Process Send dues directly to Robert Moon SPMC Treasurer 104 Chipping Ct Greenwood, SC 29649 Refer to your mailing label for when your dues are due. You may also pay your dues online at www.spmc.org. The Society of Paper Money Collectors was organized in 1961 and incorporated in 1964 as a non-profit organization under the laws of the District of Columbia. It is affiliated with the ANA. The Annual Meeting of the SPMC is held in June at the International Paper Money Show. Information about the SPMC, including the by- laws and activities can be found at our website-- www.spmc.org. The SPMC does not does not endorse any dealer, company or auction house. MEMBERSHIP—REGULAR and LIFE. Applicants must be at least 18 years of age and of good moral character. Members of the ANA or other recognized numismatic societies are eligible for membership. Other applicants should be sponsored by an SPMC member or provide suitable references. MEMBERSHIP—JUNIOR. Applicants for Junior membership must be from 12 to 17 years of age and of good moral character. A parent or guardian must sign their application. Junior membership numbers will be preceded by the letter “j” which will be removed upon notification to the secretary that the member has reached 18 years of age. Junior members are not eligible to hold office or vote. DUES—Annual dues are $39. Dues for members in Canada and Mexico are $45. Dues for members in all other countries are $60. Life membership—payable in installments within one year is $800 for U.S.; $900 for Canada and Mexico and $1000 for all other countries. The Society no longer issues annual membership cards but paid- u p members may request one from the membership director with an SASE. Memberships for all members who joined the Society prior to January 2010 are on a calendar year basis with renewals due each December. Memberships for those who joined since January 2010 are on an annual basis beginning and ending the month joined. All renewals are due before the expiration date, which can be found on the label of Paper Money. Renewals may be done via the Society website www.spmc.org or by check/money order sent to the secretary. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 85 Vignette and other Engraving Varieties on $5 Original and 1875 Series Notes ABSTRACT A rich trove of engraving varieties produced by Continental Bank Note Company engravers occur on the Original Series and Series of 1875 national bank note $5s. Four different pairs of vignettes are found on the faces. Each pair was made from a different full- face master die. The backs are even more complicated. Three distinct engravings were used to print the vignette, which were mated on plates in various permutations with three distinct engravings for the use and counterfeit statements that surround the vignette. The $5s carry an act approval date, unlike the other denominations in the series and it changed from February 25, 1863 to June 3, 1864. It occurs in the lower border on the faces and in the counterfeit statement inside the lower right back border. Figure 1. The face of this note, bearing the second title for this Watkins bank, was printed at the end of the Original Series in 1875 from an altered plate that originally carried The Second National Bank title. The bank was the last to receive notes bearing an 1863 act approval date on the face so, being an altered plate, that old act date and variety 2 face vignettes were preserved on it. The extensively used variety C vignette on the back coupled with variety 3 wording for the counterfeiting statement with June 3, 1864 act approval date seems mis- mated with the face. The New York coat-of-arms is the early variety. Somewhere in its journey, U. S. Treasurer John Burke, who served between 1913 and 1921, autographed the face. Heritage Auction Archives photo. The Paper Column Doug Walcutt Peter Huntoon SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 86 All of these varieties appeared within 20 months of the start of the Original Series. A minor intaglio design alteration involved the Continental Bank Note Company imprint, which began to be omitted from the bottom border of Series of 1875 faces beginning in February, 1887, but not always. PURPOSE, BACKGROUND AND ORGANIZATION The purposes of this article are to profile the engraving varieties found on the faces and backs of Original/1875 $5s, explain when they came about and reveal what we know about the usage for each. The difference between the Original Series and Series of 1875 was that the Series of 1875 was established to identify the notes where at least the intaglio faces had been printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Private bank note companies did all the intaglio work on the Original Series notes. An Act passed by Congress and signed into law on March 3, 1875 required that “the final printing and finishing [of national bank notes was] to be executed in the Treasury Department.” On January 4, 1877, Secretary of the Treasury Lot M. Morrill ordered that all back plates from the bank note companies be turned over to the Bureau, except for the vignettes on the backs of the $5s (BEP, various dates-a). Consequently, the Bureau began printing the national bank note backs beginning in January 1877, and simultaneously assumed responsibility for making new back plates as needed. The black vignettes on the $5 backs continued to be printed by the Columbian Bank Note Company in Washington, DC, through July 1877 (Dillistin, 1956), after which those plates also were turned over to the Bureau. Three engravings dominate the $5 notes; respectively, Columbus in Sight of Land—left front; America Presented to the Old World—right front; and The Landing of Columbus—back. They were engraved by engravers employed by the Continental Bank Note Company, which was awarded the contract for producing the $5 Original Series notes. What little is known about the identity of the engravers is found in Hessler (2004) and Hessler and Chambliss (2006). Walcutt (1996a) revealed that four different pairs of vignettes are found on the faces of the $5s. Hessler (2004), in his first edition in 1979, cited observations by Glenn E. Jackson that three different vignettes were used on the backs. Walcutt (1996b) profiled the back vignettes in more detail. This article expands on and updates the foundation laid by Walcutt. From the outset, it was apparent that the face vignettes on the Original/1875 $5 notes came in mated pairs, of which there are four. The reason for this is that the Continental Bank Note Company produced four distinct full-face generic master dies between mid-1863 and October, 1864 to make their plates. Each of those dies sported a different pair of vignettes. Proofs lifted from two of them are known; specifically, Figure 2. Proof from the variety 2 Original Series full-face master die produced at the Continental Bank Note Company from which at least one roll was made that was used to make 5-5-5-5 plates until August, 1864. Notice that the signatures of Chittenden and Spinner were engraved into the die, a fact that caused headaches in the future when the signatures had to be changed on the plates. Heritage Auction Archives photo. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 87 varieties 2 and 4, shown here as Figures 2 and 3. The face and back plate varieties along with when they were used will be will be profiled in Parts I and II, respectively. The protocols that guided the manufacture of face plates will be covered in Part III including identification of exotic situations that developed. The contracts for the Original Series $5s were awarded to the Continental Bank Note Company, the only national bank note denomination assigned to that company, so a brief examination of Waterman Ormsby, its founder, and his influence on currency designs follows in Part IV. This is a long article with complicated material, so these subdivisions are designed to break it up into manageable pieces. Part I $5 FACE VARIETIES The four $5 face varieties are defined on the basis of the distinctively different pairs of engravings that were used on them. The best places to see these differences are shown on Figure 4. The primary distinguishing features between the left vignettes are the shapes of the waves and Figure 3. Proof from the variety 4 Original Series full-face master die produced at the Continental Bank Note Company that was the source for all plates made in the Original Series and Series of 1875 from the end of October 1864 until the end of the series in 1902. They also made the mistake of engraving the signatures of the Treasury officials on this die, in this case Colby and Spinner. Bruce Hagen photo. Figure 4. A rare variety 1 face, readily spotted because NATIONAL CURRENCY is not centered under the upper border. The blue ovals indicate where to look to observe the most obvious differences between the four pairs of engravings used on Original/1875 series faces. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 88 definition of the island on the horizon. See Figure 5. The right vignettes are readily differentiated on the basis of the feathers on the side of the head of the Indian princess and shape of the foliage next to the upper right counter. See Figures 6 and 7. A careful comparison between the face varieties reveals that most of the elements on the variety 1 master die, other than the vignettes, represent an entirely different engraving or assemblage of different engravings. In contrast, significant parts of the two vignettes are identical between all the varieties indicating that they were engraved on separate dies. Probably rolls were lifted from those dies and the images were laid into the four full-face master dies. Once laid-in, different engravers made material alterations to the vignettes to render them into their variety 1, 2, 3 and 4 forms. Figure 5. The waves are more turbulent and the island and sky are better defined on the variety 2 and 3 vignettes. The island is ill-defined on variety 4. The varieties (1, 2, 3, 4) progress from left to right. Figure 6. The bottom feather is missing on variety 4. The second feather up is very broad on variety 1 and small on variety 4. Varieties 2 and 3 are indistinguishable. Figure 7. The top branch is hook-shaped on varieties 1 and 2, which are indistinguishable. More foliage has been added to the hooked branch on variety 3. The hooked branch has been removed from variety 4. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 89 Variety 1 Variety 1 occurs only on a few of the first plates made in the Original Series. The act approval date is always February 25, 1863, plate date is November 2, 1863, and the Treasury signatures are Chittenden- Spinner on the Original Series notes. Verified occurrences in the Original Series include Youngstown, OH (3), Stamford, CT (4), Fort Wayne, IN (11), Sandusky, OH (16), Washington, DC (26) and Indianapolis (55). The Original Series variety 1 plates for charters 3, 4, 16 and 55 were altered for use in the Series of 1875. All variety 1 notes are very scarce in both the Original and 1875 series owing to the small number of banks that received them. A variety 2 duplicate plate was made for The First National Bank of Washington, DC (26), early in the Original Series. Consequently, only the early $5s issued from the bank are variety 1. Distinguishing Features: Figure 8 reveals that the most readily observable difference on variety 1 faces is the fact that NATIONAL CURRENCY is not centered below the upper border and there is a leftward shift of the lines of text above and below UNITED STATES. The second feather up on the side of the head of the Indian princess is unusually broad in the right vignette. Also, the upper branch has a distinctive hook shape, a characteristic also common to variety 2. The sky in the left vignette is very light down to the horizon. Both vignettes were extended close to the bottom border, thus constricting the space for the bank signatures. The letters in the upper left counter are leaner than on varieties 2, 3 and 4 as illustrated on Figure 9. The variety 1 Chittenden-Spinner signatures on the Original Series version of the plates differ from those used on varieties 2, 3 and 4. Especially noticeable are differences in punctuation, the placement and shape of the dots over the i in Spinner, and the finer line weight of Chittenden’s signature on the later varieties. See Figure 10. The use of flourishes around the left plate letters are unique to variety 1. See Figure 8. Figure 8. Comparison between the securities statement on variety 1 (top) and variety 2, 3 and 4 plates. Notice how the lines of text have shifted between the two and that NATIONAL CURRENCY is not centered under the upper border on variety 1. These two security statements represent two entirely different engravings. Figure 9. Comparison between the engravings of the counters found on variety 1 (top) and variety 2, 3 and 4 plates. Compare the girth of the letters and sizes of the shaded hollows on the right sides of the F and E. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 90 BEP Usage: Although variety 1 plates were transferred to the BEP in 1875, it is doubtful that the variety 1 master die or rolls lifted from it were. No proofs from the master die have been found at the BEP and no reentries were made to the Series of 1875 forms of the variety 1 plates that were in BEP custody. Variety 2 Variety 2 is the second most common variety, being found on most notes with charters 1 through 458. Those for charters 1 through 456 have an act date of February 25, 1863. Variety 2 vignettes also were reentered over some Original Series plates that originally bore variety 3 vignettes. Distinguishing Features: There is a large thin feather and one small feather on the side of the head of the Indian princess in the right vignette. The waves in the left vignette are more turbulent than on variety 1. The hooked branch next to the upper right counter is the same as on variety 1. BEP Usage: The variety 2 master die and/or roll(s) lifted from it were transferred to the BEP in 1875. Variety 2 vignettes were reentered as needed by BEP siderographers onto variety 2 and some variety 3 Original Series plates that had been altered into Series of 1875 forms. Variety 3 Variety 3 was used to make the plates for charters 460 to 525, which always bear a June 3, 1864, act date. Notes with this variety are scarce because of its limited usage. Distinguishing Feature: The hooked branch next to the upper right counter exhibits considerably more foliage than that on any of the other varieties. The waves on the left vignette and feathers on the side of the head of the Indian princess are Figure 11. Variety 2. Turbulent waves, smaller feathers on the side of the princess’ head, hooked tree branch same as variety 1. Figure 10. Different Chittenden- Spinner signatures were used on the variety 1 Original Series notes (top) than on varieties 2, 3 and 4. Easily observed are differences in punctuation throughout. Also notice differences in where the various loops intersect overlying and underlying text. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 91 indistinguishable from those on variety 2. BEP Usage: Neither the variety 3 master die nor rolls lifted from it were transferred to the BEP in 1875 or they arrived in unserviceable condition. Consequently, the BEP siderographers never reentered variety 3 vignettes onto any variety 3 Original Series plates that the BEP received. Variety 4 Variety 4 is found on Original/1875 series notes from charters 528 through 2767, along with some earlier charters for which new-title, late-ordered, or duplicate plates were made. Variety 4 is the most common variety found on notes. Distinguishing Features: There is only one feather on the side of the head of the Indian princess and it is small. The hooked branch on the tree has been removed. BEP Usage: The variety 4 master die and rolls(s) lifted from it were transferred to the BEP in 1875 and used to make all new plates thereafter at the BEP as well as to reenter variety 4 Original Series plates transferred to the BEP. Variety 4 vignettes also were reentered at the BEP over variety 3 vignettes on some plates that carried variety 3 vignettes in their Original Series form. Figure 13. Variety 4. Bottom feather on side of head is missing, second feather up is small, hooked branch next to upper right counter is gone, waves similar to variety 1, island is weakly portrayed. Figure 12. Variety 3. Decidedly fuller foliage above the hooked branch next to the upper right counter, waves and feathers indistinguishable from variety 2. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 92 Part II BACK VIGNETTE VARIETIES Three different engravings of The Landing of Columbus were used on the backs of Original Series $5 notes. They are listed here as varieties A, B and C. All were made at the Continental Bank Note Company. All were used to print Original Series notes, but only variety C was used at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to print Series of 1875 notes. It is apparent that the dies and rolls for varieties A and B were destroyed before the startup of the Series of 1875 because they were not turned over to the BEP in July 1877 when the BEP took over the printing of the vignettes from the Columbian Bank Note Company, which had held the printing contracts for them since September 1875 (Graves and others, 1877). Variety A Distinguishing Features: Columbus is wearing black pantaloons with definitive vertical white stripes. The shading along the bottom of the vignette is dark. Variety A was used from the beginning of the Original Series until at least the end of the un-prefixed blue Treasury sheets serials in January 1865 based on observed notes. Variety B Distinguishing Features: Columbus’ pantaloons have a draped pattern overlain by definitive strong engraved diagonal lines. The V design on his shirt is very pronounced wherein the uppermost dark line is curved. The shading along the bottom of the vignette is dark. The first use of variety B that we have observed dates from about March 1864 at the beginning of the second third of the un-prefixed red Treasury sheet serial number block. They appear sporadically in later blocks where we have observed them on notes with un-prefixed blue and A- and E-prefix serials, the last of which dates from about March 1869 (Walcutt, 1996a). The variety was little used so notes sporting it are very scarce. Variety C Distinguishing Features: Definitive is that there is very light shading along the bottom of the vignette. The uppermost dark line on Columbus’ shirt is straight. The bold diagonal lines through Columbus’ pantaloons found on variety B are missing. Figure 14. Variety A: Definitive is that Columbus’ Pantaloons are black with vertical white strips. The bottom of the vignette is darkly shaded. Mark Hotz photo. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 93 The first use of variety C that we have observed dates from around November 1864 on notes from the middle of the un-prefixed blue Treasury sheet serial number block. It is the most common variety with use spanning to the end of the Series of 1875. Figure 15. Variety B: Columbus: dark line forming uppermost stripe on shirt is curved, pantaloons are lightly patterned with definitive strong diagonal engraved lines. Bottom of the vignette is darkly shaded. Figure 16. Variety C: Definitive is very light shading along the bottom of the vignette. Columbus: dark line forming uppermost stripe on shirt is straight. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 94 Other Characteristics There are several other minor differences between the back vignettes then those described. Compare the various renderings of Columbus’ shirt, the small boats in the left background and differing line work in the flag held by Columbus. Other engravings of the vignette were produced by American Bank Note Company and Bureau of Engraving and Printing engravers, but were not used on notes. USE-COUNTERFEIT STATEMENT VARIETIES The use and counterfeit statements that surround the back vignettes were laid into the vignette plates as illustrated on Figure 16 because both were printed in black. There are three varieties of these herein numbered 1 to 3. Varieties 1 and 2 carried an act approval date of February 25, 1863, whereas variety 3 used June 3, 1864. See Figure 17. The distinguishing characteristics between varieties 1 and 2 are illustrated on Figure 18. Notice on variety 1 that there are two dots under “th” and the top of the 3 in the year is round. There is only one dot under “th” and a flat-topped 3 in the variety 2 year. The mating of the use and counterfeit statements with a given vignette on the backs varied from plate to plate in the Original Series. So far, we know of the following couplings: A/1, A/3, B/1, B/3, C/1, C/2, C/3. Variety 1 and 2 statements occur only on Original Series notes. Use of variety 1 dated from the beginning of the series. The earliest use of variety 2 that we have observed was coupled with the first observed C vignette on a note numbered in the middle of the un-prefixed blue Treasury serial number block circa November 1864. The last of the observed notes with variety 1 and 2 were printed in the first third of the H-block around July 1871, which ended the use of act of 1863 approval dates in the counterfeit clauses. Up until then, the act approval dates on the faces and backs always were matched. Variety 3, which carried a June 3, 1864 act approval date, first appeared on Original Series notes with Act of 1864 faces, the first of which were delivered to the Comptroller of the Currency on July 15, 1864. Notes having 1863 faces were printed on backs with variety 3 statements after stocks having Figure 18. The top of the 3 in 1863 is round on variety 1 but flat on variety 2. Two dots underlie “th” in the date on variety 1 but one on variety 2. Figure 17. Detail showing a variety 1 1863 act approval date on an early Original Series $5. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 95 variety 1 and 2 backs ran out during the first third of the H-block. The earliest of these that we have seen dates from around May 1871. The changeover was not sharp. One result of this usage pattern is that no Original Series faces with 1864 act approval dates have been found mated with variety 1 and 2 backs, so there are no notes with 1864 faces and 1863 backs. In contrast, beginning in 1871, 1863 faces were mated exclusively with 1864 backs. The resulting mismatch didn’t trouble anyone in the Treasury Department because the laws governing use and counterfeiting were identical in the two acts. All Series of 1875 notes have C/3 backs. LIMITATIONS The longevity of the use of the back-vignette plates depended on two factors. The most obvious was when the last plates of a given variety wore out. However, there is a subtlety that introduces a joker into this scheme. Backs were preprinted and stocked for each state and territory. Withdrawals from the stocks were mated with faces as the print orders for those states and territories came in. The lives of the stocks for the different states and territories were highly variable. Stocks having long lives resulted in some very late uses of some permutations of back vignette and use-counterfeit statements. If your Original Series note was printed before mid-1871 (H-Treasury sheet serial number block), you never know what surprise might await you until you turn the note over. No Continental Bank Note Company proofs or plate usage records survived. Consequently, our knowledge of the usage patterns for the back varieties are imprecise because they are based on spotty observations from notes and available high-resolution photos of notes. The usage ranges reported here will change with future observations. Part III PROTOCOLS FOR MAKING ORIGINAL SERIES FACE PLATES AND USAGE PATTERNS Three variable non-bank-specific design elements were incorporated into the Original Series $5 face plates made by the Continental Bank Note Company: (1) vignette varieties, (2) Treasury signature combinations and (3) act approval dates. Each time one of these variables was changed, the new version was immediately implemented on the face plates made thereafter. See Table 1. Plates for New Banks The breaks in usage between the various permutations occur abruptly within the sequence of charter numbers for new banks as documented on Table 1 with but two exceptions, (1) those with variety 1 vignettes and (2) three banks chartered during the Jeffries-Spinner era. It is apparent that after an initial period of a few months, Original Series plates for new banks generally were ordered in sequential order of their charter numbers and made in close charter number order. Once a new design element became available, it was adopted immediately and the old was dropped from use yielding sharp charter number breaks. The first Original Series plates were not made in charter number order so the first deliveries of variety 1 production arrived at the Comptroller’s office in the following order: charters 26, 55, 11, 16, 3, 4. However, it still appears that the temporal break between the use of the variety 1 and 2 plates was sharp. The very first plate made was for charter 26, The First National Bank of Washington, DC. It was the desire of Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase that the first national bank notes would debut in Washington to symbolize their national character so he requested that the Washington bank get the first notes. This decision was not hurt by the fact that financier Jay Cook’s brother Henry was the president of that bank, because Cook was instrumental in marketing the first bonds to fund the Civil War. Those sheets arrived at the Treasury Department on December 18, 1863, where they were numbered and sealed. They were delivered to the bank December 21st. The second $5 plate was for The First National Bank of Indianapolis, charter 55. This also was not coincidence. It happened that Comptroller of the Currency Hugh McCulloch was a prominent Indiana banker who had been drafted by Chase from his presidency of The State Bank of Indiana to run that operation. The first of the Indianapolis sheets arrived at the Comptroller’s office on December 24th. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 96 Vignette 2 plates followed for the infill and succeeding charters once those plates became available at the beginning of 1864. Jay Cook’s First National Bank of Philadelphia, charter 1, got variety 2 faces but not from the first variety 2 plate. The first $5 delivery to the Comptroller for his bank was on March 22, 1864, the 134th bank for which such a delivery was made. Instead, the Philadelphia bank had the honor of receiving the first printings from 10-10-10-10 and 20-20-50-100 plates when production from them began. In the cases Lake, IL (1678), Bangor, ME (1687) and Cleveland, OH (1689), which were charted during the Jeffries-Spinner era, fabrication of their plates was significantly delayed owing to a Congressionally mandated cap on total national bank note circulation. When the cap was lifted, variety 4 plates for those banks were made that carried the then current Allison-Spinner combination. Title Change Plates The protocol for handling title change plates was to update the plate dates using batch dates that reflected when the plates were ordered and to use the Treasury signatures that were current on those dates. The first title change to appear on a $5 plate was for charter 321 in Plattsburgh, NY, which was changed from The Second National Bank to the Vilas National Bank in 1869. By then, variety 4 plates with 1864 act dates were in production so those features were used on the new plate along with the then current Treasury signatures. The same was true for all the succeeding title change plates made in the Original Series, except for one exotic case for the Havana, New York bank profiled below. Duplicate Plates The bank note companies were faced with making duplicate plates; however, we lack documentation pertaining to the protocols used to make them. We have identified two duplicate plates from the Original Series, a 5-5-5-5 for The Tenth National Bank of the City of New York (307) found by Doug Walcutt and a 1-1-1-2 from The Mechanics National Bank of the City of New York (1250) found by Doug Murray (Huntoon, 2019). Both carried a 2 next to one of the plate letters on each subject, thus making them distinctive. No other such numbered Original Series plates have been found despite a thorough search for them among the proofs, so we presume that the practice of numbering duplicate plates were one-offs for the respective bank note companies that made them. Both an Original Series proof from the first $5 New York plate and a Series of 1875 proof from the duplicate exist in the National Numismatic Collection. Differing plate margin markings unambiguously demonstrate that they were lifted from different plates. The curious fact is that both carry variety 2 vignettes Table 1. The timing of the adoption of new combinations of face vignette varieties, Treasury signature combinations and act approval dates on Original Series 5-5-5-5 plates based on when sheets for newly chartered banks bearing them began to be delivered to the Comptroller of the Currency. Vignette Act First Delivery Variety Date Treasury Signatures to Comptroller Impacted Charter Numbers Chittenden-Spinner signatures became current - Apr 17, 1861 Act of Feb 25, 1863 1 1863 Chittenden-Spinner Dec 18, 1863 3, 4, 11, 16, 26, 55 2 1863 Chittenden-Spinner Jan 2, 1864 1 – 456 except 3, 4, 11, 16, 55 Act of June 3, 1864 2 1864 Chittenden-Spinner Jul 15, 1864 457-458 (459 unknowna) 3 1864 Chittenden-Spinner Aug 19, 1864 460-493 Colby-Spinner signatures became current - Aug 11, 1864 3 1864 Colby-Spinner Sep 2, 1864 494-525 (526, 527 unknowna) 4 1864 Colby-Spinner Oct 31, 1864 528-1672 Jeffries-Spinner signatures became current - Oct 5, 1867 4 1864 Jeffries-Spinner Dec 23, 1867 1674, 1677, 1681-1686, 1688, 1690-1691 Allison-Spinner signatures became current - Apr 3, 1869 4 1864 Allison-Spinner Jul 17, 1869 1678, 1687, 1689, 1692-2280 and 2nd titles for 94, 321, 343, 358, 420, 456, 616, 810, 826, 938, 1207, 1348, 1464, 1701, 1772, 1773, 1830, 1893, 1894, 2008 a. Type unknown- no proofs or reported specimens. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 97 and 1863 act dates. The roll with these features went out of service for making plates for new banks in June 1864, but remained in inventory. Two scenarios are possible. (1) The first plate prematurely wore out or became damaged before August 19, 1864, when deliveries of the first variety 3 notes began so the duplicate was made before then. (2) The duplicate was made later so the siderographer retrieved the obsolete variety 2 roll to make the duplicate in his effort to preserve the required Chittenden-Spinner signatures and in the process also preserved the 1863 plate date. The only reported note from the first plate bears Treasury serial 975084-red numbered in late July 1864, whereas the lowest reported note from the duplicate plate is P39887 numbered in early 1875. The information provided by these two notes doesn’t preclude either scenario. Surely other duplicate Original Series plates were required. The fact that we haven’t spotted them among the proofs hints that when duplicates were required, they were faithfully copied in every detail down to the plate letters. That was standard practice when making duplicate plates within the bank note industry at the time. Act Approval Dates The topic of the act approval dates requires development. The earliest national banks were organized under an act passed February 25, 1863. That entire law was rewritten to eliminate deficiencies and the revision passed June 3, 1864. Table 1 reveals that the first bank chartered after June 3, 1864, was The First National Bank of Figure 19. Only two duplicate Original Series plates have been documented. This note from one was discovered because they placed 2s below the right plate letters. Heritage Auction Archives photo. Figure 20. As soon as the Act of June 3, 1864 passed, they started putting the 1864 act approval dates on face plates for new banks even if they were organized under the 1863 act. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 98 Racine, Wisconsin (457). The Racine bank and all that followed got notes with 1864 act approval dates. This seems cut and dried, and of little consequence. However, there is a technicality here. The following are the charter numbers for the banks organized under the 1863 act: 1-473, 477, 479, 482, 485, 487-489, 491-494, 500, 502, 521, 548 and 555. The skips in the numbers were caused by delays between the dates the banks were organized and when they were chartered. The intervening numbers were those for banks organized under the 1864 act that perfected their charters before the last of the 1863 banks. The salient fact is that the plates for 34 banks with charter numbers from 457 and above, including the Racine bank, were organized under the 1863 act, but they received notes bearing the 1864 act date. Conversely, through quirks of fate that will be chronicled, some plates for banks organized under the 1864 act ended up with 1863 act approval dates. All of these situations appear to be technical errors. However, in the eyes of the Treasury officials, the disconnect between the acts under which the banks were organized and the act approval dates on their notes was of no consequence so no attention was paid to it. Act dates were not altered on $5 Original Series or Series of 1875 plates after they were made to bring them into conformity with the laws under which the banks were organized. Exotic Situations on $5 Original Series Notes The Second National Bank of Havana, New York, charter 343, underwent a title change to The Havana National Bank in 1874. Highly unusual was that the old title was simply removed from their 5-5- 5-5 plate and the new rolled in. The alterations included updating the Treasury signatures and plate date, but the old variety 2 vignettes and 1863 act date were left as was. The 5-5-5-5 plate for The Richmond National Bank, Indiana, charter 1102, was recycled for use by its reorganized successor with the identical title but new charter 2090. The Treasury signatures and plate date were updated, but the 1863 act date was left as was even though charter 2090 was organized under the 1864 act. PROTOCOLS INVOLVING SERIES OF 1875 FACE PLATES All Series of 1875 5-5-5-5 plates made by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing carried variety 4 vignettes and 1864 act dates. This includes plates for all new banks having charter numbers 2282 through 2767. It also includes all title change plates and duplicate plates regardless of charter number. The Treasury signatures on all Original Series plates that were altered into Series of 1875 forms were updated to the officers who were current at the time the plates were altered. The plate dates were left as found. Also, the act approval dates were left as was so old 1863 act approval dates survived on the plates that carried them. The existing vignettes also were left alone unless they exhibited wear and had to be reentered. A “printed at” BEP medallion was placed above the title blocks. When the vignettes on the altered Original Series plates required reentry—either at the time they were altered into 1875 forms or later—variety 2 and 4 vignettes were used to match those on the plates. However, all variety 3 vignettes were replaced by either variety 2 or 4 vignettes. No variety 1 plates were reentered by the BEP. The Treasury signatures on reentered existing Series of 1875 plates—be they previously altered Original Series Continental Bank Note plates or Series of 1875 BEP plates—were left as was except for plates reentered in 1878, which were the first plates reentered at the BEP. The signatures in the 1878 cases were updated to Schofield-Gilfillan if those signatures weren’t already on the plates. Stars were placed next to the upper right plate letters on the reentered plates from at least April 1878 through April 1896. See Figure 4 for an example. In the cases of duplicate plates, the Treasury signatures and plate dates were updated prior to at least early 1881; thereafter, they were copied from the predecessor plate. Some, but not all, Bureau siderographers copied every detail from the old to the duplicate plates including the act approval date and bank note company imprint. The Treasury signatures and plate dates were updated on all title-change plates. An 1864 act approval date was used on all. Plate lettering restarted at A-B-C-D. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 99 The BEP omitted the bank note company imprints from all new and many reentered plates from all Series of 1875 and 1882 national bank note plates beginning in February, 1887. The siderographers also periodically went into the plate inventory and removed the imprints from existing plates as time permitted thereafter. Precise dating of adoption of this protocol comes from the certification dates for two Series of 1882 10-10-10-20 plates for new banks; respectively, The United States National Bank of Atchison, KS (3612), on January 22, 1887, with an imprint, and The Albany County National Bank of Laramie, WY (3615), on February 2, 1887, without. Exotic Situations on $5 Series of 1875 Proofs Two Series of 1875 plates that began their lives as Original Series plates were recycled for use by reorganized successors with the same title. The pairs were Rondout, New York (34/2493), and Granville, Ohio (388/2496). In these unusual cases, the signatures and plate dates were updated, but everything else on the plates was left as was including the variety 2 vignettes and the 1863 act date. One particularly strange case involved the 5-5-5-5 plate made for The First National Bank of Rockville, Indiana, charter 63. It started life as an Original Series plate with variety 2 vignettes and 1863 act approval dates. It was altered into a Series of 1875 form at the BEP with customary updates. Next, the bank was liquidated and reorganized in 1877 as The National Bank of Rockville, which received new charter number 2361. Instead of making a new plate, the plate for charter 63 was altered by updating the bank title, Treasury signatures and plate date. The variety 2 vignettes and obsolete 1863 act approval date survived through all of this! MISSING ‘r AND ‘t ON REENTERED BEP PLATES A peculiar minor variety that occurred during the reentry of a few plates was the omission of the ‘r after Cash and the ‘t after Pres under the blanks for the bank signatures. This has been observed on notes from reentered $5 Series of 1875 plates from The Central National Bank of the City of New York (376) and The Second National Bank of Baltimore (414). The ‘r and ‘t are present on the pre-reentry Series of 1875 Smithsonian proofs. The omitted ‘r and ‘t were replaced in one New York case. The proof made from a reentered $5 Series of 1875 plate for The Third National Bank of the City of New York (87) exhibits the omission. Figure 21. Series of 1875 proofs from the same bank with and without the Continental Bank Note Company imprint. Figure 22. The ‘r and ‘t were omitted from cash’r and pres’t next to the signature lines when the Series of 1875 plate for this New York bank was reentered. Note the reentry star next to the upper plate letter. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 100 However, a note from the first delivery after the reentry has the letters, so the plate was repaired. That reentry was reported to the Comptroller in a letter dated November 4, 1879. The same omissions occur on the $5 Original and 1875 series notes from The Tenth National Bank of the City of New York (307), printed from the duplicate plate bearing the 2 under the plate letters. See Figure 19. FACE PLATE MANUFACTURING AND REENTRY Central to the production of plates at the Continental Bank Note Company was the use of full-face generic master dies, of which there were four. The rolls lifted from them were used to lay their images onto the production plates. The same full-face rolls were used to reenter vignettes on worn plates because the close tolerances between the interwoven design elements on the $5s precluded the use of separate vignette rolls for refurbishing the vignettes as was the practice on the higher denomination subjects in the series. One mistake they made at the Continental Bank Note Company was to engrave the Treasury signatures on their master dies. Once hardened, those signatures were there to stay. See Figures 2 and 3. When Register of the Treasury Colby took office on August 11, 1864, variety 3 plates were current. The protocol was for banks chartered thereafter to carry his signature instead of Chittenden’s. Chittenden’s signature could not be removed from the variety 3 master full-face die because it had been hardened. The most likely way the dilemma was solved was to lift a new roll from the die and remove his signature from the roll. The unwanted signature stood in relief on its surface so it would have been a fairly easy task to remove it prior to hardening the roll. The only onerous part of the job was clearing the loops in his signature that extended upward into “with the U. S. Treasury at Washington.” Vestiges of those loops show on some notes and proofs. See Figure 23. Colby’s signature then had to be laid-in as a separate operation on each subject along with the bank- specific items. Therefore, his signature wanders within the space allotted for it from proof to proof and even between the subjects on the same proof revealing this is how it was handled. The change of the act date on the variety 2 die for charters 457, 458 and 459(?) probably was handled similarly. Notice from Figure 3 that Colby’s and Spinner’s signatures were on the variety 4 master die. Consequently, when Jeffries and Allison assumed the office of register on October 5, 1867, and April 3, 1869, respectively; their signatures had to be dealt with in the same fashion as Colby’s had been with the variety 3 die. Interesting is that Colby’s signature on variety 3 faces is slightly different than on variety 4. The most easily discernible differences involve variations between the small loop in the left side of the “o” and the space inside the loop of the “l.” Where the story gets interesting and a bit convoluted is when the dies, rolls and plates for the faces were turned over to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in 1875. The Bureau received the variety 2 and 4 master dies, which respectively carried Chittenden/Spinner Figure 23. Colby’s signature (top) was updated on Original Series plates that were altered into Series of 1875 forms at the BEP. Notice the residual loop from his signature on the Series of 1875 plate (bottom) for The Market National Bank of Boston (505). SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 101 and Colby/Spinner signatures. Before the Bureau could begin making their own Series of 1875 plates, they had to contend with those obsolete signatures identically as the Continental Bank Note Company had in the past. The Bureau employees probably also removed the signatures from the rolls they made from the variety 2 and 4 master dies in order to accomplish the job. The Original Series plates transferred to the Bureau made for a huge headache because they had to be altered by updating the Treasury signatures. Those signatures had to be physically removed from each subject on the plates and the new signatures rolled in. The difficult task was to remove the loops from the old signatures where they overlapped other design elements. It is not uncommon to find vestiges of those loops on Series of 1875 notes. See Figure 23. National bank note face plates were not hardened because production from them was modest. Consequently, signature and other alterations could be carried out fairly readily. Also, because they were soft, the plates could be reentered to refurbished worn design elements when necessary. The lives of plates commonly were prolonged by reentering the vignettes because the vignettes were the first design elements to exhibit wear. The reentries of $5 Series of 1875 face plates were accomplished on transfer presses using a full-face roll to repress the parts of the faces containing the vignettes into the worn plate. Care was taken by Bureau siderographers to use the appropriate bank note company rolls when reentering the vignettes on the former Continental Bank Note Company plates. It is clear, however, that neither the variety 3 master die nor roll(s) lifted from it were transferred to the BEP, or if they were, they Figure 24. Variety 4 vignettes (bottom note) were reentered over variety 3 vignettes (top note) when the Series of 1875 plate for this bank was reentered. Faint remnants of the variety 3 tree remain to the left of the upper right counter. Notice that the Treasury signatures were updated. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 102 were unserviceable because BEP siderographers never reentered a variety 3 vignette on any variety 3 plate that the Bureau received. When variety 3 plates required reentry, variety 2 or 4 rolls had to be used, thereby creating interesting and exotic notes. The force exerted through a roll was sufficient to obliterated the old variety 3 vignettes as the new were laid in over it. An excellent example involves the issues from The Continental National Bank of Boston, Massachusetts (524). There are two 5-5-5-5 Series of 1875 proofs in the Smithsonian holdings. As illustrated on Figure 24, the earlier has variety 3 vignettes, Allison-New signatures and plate letters A-B- C-D. The later has variety 4 vignettes, Scofield-Gilfillan signatures and plate letters A-B-C-D. Remnants of the larger left side and top of the variety 3 tree are preserved in the right-hand vignettes on the second proof. Clearly the plate had been reentered with a variety 4 roll that almost completely obliterated the pre- existing variety 3 images. The later proof did not have the characteristic stars next to the plate letters, indicating that the plate was reentered before the Bureau started using stars to designate reentered plates. A similar observation involves two Series of 1875 5-5-5-5 proofs for The North National Bank of Boston, Massachusetts (525). In this case, the proof from the reentered plate carries the same Allison-New signatures as the original, has the reentry stars next to the plate letters and exhibits remnants of the obliterated variety 3 vignettes. However, it has variety 2 vignettes. See Figure 25. This reentry occurred later than that for charter 524, after they stopped updating the Treasury signatures. The reentry was reported to the Comptroller in a letter dated May 2, 1879. Part IV THE CONTINENTAL BANK NOTE COMPANY The Continental Bank Note Company was founded in January,1863 by Waterman Lily Ormsby in league with financial backers as a rival to the American and National Bank Note companies (McCabe, 2016, p. 124-131). Ormsby was a brilliant individual, albeit very critical of and abrasive to the established securities engraving profession. He was a skilled engraver, siderographer and mechanical innovator who improved on machines used in the engraving trade such as the transfer press, geometric lathe, ruling machine and pantograph. He invented a machine he called the kaleidograph for creating so-called mosaic engravings along the lines of geometric lathes (Jackson, 1983). Ormsby stanchly advocated for the adoption by the securities engraving profession of what he called unit systems for currency designs (Ormsby, 1852, 1862). His unit system involved one picture engraving covering the entire face of a note with the necessary hand-engraved text interwoven into it “so that counterfeiters cannot divide it, and procure the parts engraved by professional artists” (Jackson, 1978). Figure 25. Variety 2 vignettes were reentered over variety 3 vignettes when the plate containing this note was reentered in May 1879. The Treasury signatures were not changed because this reentry occurred after they stopped updating signatures on reentered plates. Notice the star next to the upper left plate letter to signify that the plate had been reentered. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 103 Figure 26. Ormsby’s Original Series $5 design didn’t quite adhere to his unit system design concept (top). The BEP, with George Casilear as chief engraver, went the opposite direction from Ormsby through the 1870s and early 1880s with patchwork designs right down to the laying-in of individual letters (middle), but eventually Treasury officials had second thoughts. Ormsby had been dead for 13 years when the educational silver certificates hit the streets, which were the embodiment of his unit system concept with lavish engravings that covered the whole with interwoven hand-engraved text (bottom). Heritage Auction Archives photos. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 104 He touted his concept of unit systems as far superior to the then industry standard patch work designs that stitched together separate—often stock—vignettes, lathe work and lettering to create the faces of notes. Early in his career, he distained the use of lathe work—engravings made by geometric lathes— which were popular and cheap to make that were used as stand-alone ornaments, backgrounds upon which counters were superimposed and building blocks used in repetitive border work. Naturally, his opinions drew the ire of his competitors. Ormsby’s Continental Bank Note Company won the contract for the Original Series $5s. The design of the faces of the $5s represented a compromise to his unit system principals, yet it stands out in the Original/1875 series for having more surface area devoted to vignettes than the other denominations. Although Ormsby organized the Continental Bank Note Company, he didn’t own a controlling interest. A man named Touro Robertson gained control and pushed him out in 1867. Ormsby attempted to form a new firm he called Republican Unit Bank Note Company around 1870, but nothing came of it. He died in 1883, at age 73. The Continental Bank Note Company was merged into The American Bank Note Company along with the National Bank Note Company in 1879. Ormsby’s unit note concept was ignored, especially at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing during Chief Engraver George Casilear’s reign from the mid-1870s to mid-1880s. Casilear’s emphasis was on lettering and text-dominated designs in a form of patch work that utilized recycled alphabets of engraved letters that were laid in by siderographers one letter at a time rather than featuring hand engravings. His designs were attacked as inferior and reviled as inartistic by the engraving establishment. Eventually the Treasury and Bureau of Engraving and Printing reacted by reviving emphasis on engraved work, which became ever more elaborate going into the 1890s. The all-time culmination of this swing was the Series of 1896 educational silver certificates, where no paper could be seen through the lavish intaglio engravings that covered the notes, and where lettering and counters were almost lost in the cacophony. Although Ormsby was dead by then, his philosophy behind bank note design had ultimately infected the BEP. His post-mortem influence lasted only a few years. By 1899, the Educational Series was supplanted by more open and streamlined designs. More paper showed through so holders could see the imbedded threads in the paper, which also were being touted as a counterfeiting deterrent. CLOSING REMARKS Four pairs of face vignettes, three back vignettes and three renderings of the use and counterfeit statements on the backs were used on $5 Original Series and Series of 1875 notes over the 40-year life of the combined series. Dies and rolls for all of these varieties had been put into service by October 1864. The use of the retired vignettes on the face plates that they graced lived on, many for a full 20 years into 1884, when the last of the user banks was extended. In contrast, the lives of the earliest of the back- vignette plates with 1863 act dates were considerably shorter because none were turned over to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing for use in printing Series of 1875 notes. A design feature unique to the $5 denomination in the Original/1875 series was the display of the act date that authorized the series in the bottom border of the faces and in the counterfeit statement inside the right back border. Two different act dates appeared, February 25, 1863 and June 3, 1864. The 1864 act date began service on both the faces and backs as soon as the act was passed regardless of the act that the bank was organized under. From about July 1871, the 1863 act dates on the faces were mated with 1864 backs. Treasury officials overseeing the note emissions thought nothing of the mis-mating because in their view the 1864 act simply supplanted the 1863 act wherein the terms governing the issuance and backing for the notes was the same. It is unknown which pairs of face vignettes were used on the $5s for charters 459, 526 and 527. Specimens have not been observed from these banks and proofs for them don’t exist in the Smithsonian holdings. If you examine the changeover breaks on Table 1, you will observe that the plates for these banks straddled two of them, thus making discovery of specimens from these three of particular interest to the authors. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 105 REFERENCE CITED AND SOURCES OF DATA Bureau of Engraving and Printing, 1875-1929, Certified proofs of national bank note face and back plates: National Numismatic Collections, Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, various dates-a, Correspondence to and from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing: Record Group 318, U. S. National Archives, College Park, MD. Dillistin, William H., 1956, A descriptive history of national bank notes 1863-1935: Private Printing, Paterson, NJ, 55 p. Graves, E. O., Edward Wolcott and E. R. Chapman, 1877, Report on the Bureau of Engraving and Printing made by the Committee of Investigation appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury: Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 40 p. plus appendices. Hessler, Gene, 2004, U. S. essay, proof and specimen notes, second edition: BNR Press, Portage, OH, 262 p. Hessler, Gene, and Carlson Chambliss, 2006. The comprehensive catalog of U. S. paper money, seventh edition: BNR Press, Portage, OH, 672 p. Huntoon, Peter, May 2019, Discovery of a new numbered Orig/1875 plate: Bank Note Reporter, v. 68, no. 5, p. 12, 14, 16, 18. Jackson, Glenn E., 1978, W. L. Ormsby correspondence with Treasury Department uncovered: The Essay-Proof Journal, whole no. 139, p. 111-118. Jackson, Glenn E., 1983, Mosaic engraving: The Essay-Proof Journal, whole no. 159, p. 136-138. Jackson, Glenn E., 1984, Further light on the reputation of W. L. Ormsby, 19th century bank note and stamp engraver: The Essay- Proof Journal, whole no. 162, p. 60-65. McCabe, Bob, 2016, Counterfeiting and technology: Whitman Publishing, LLC, Atlanta, GA, 480 p. Ormsby, Waterman Lily, 1852, A description of the present system of bank note engraving, showing its tendency to facilitate counterfeiting to which is added a new method of constructing bank notes to prevent forgery: privately published, New York, NY, 101 p. Ormsby, Waterman Lily, 1862, Cycloidal configurations or the harvest of counterfeiters, containing matter of the highest importance concerning paper money, also explaining the Unit System of bank note engraving: privately published, New York, NY, 45 p. United States Statutes, March 3, 1875, An act making appropriations for sundry expenses of the government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1876: Government Printing Office, Washington, DC. Walcutt, Doug, 1996a, Varieties of national bank notes, part five; The Rag Picker (Paper Money Collectors of Michigan): v. 31, no. 1, p. 12-25. Walcutt, Doug, 1996b, Varieties of national bank notes, part six; The Rag Picker (Paper Money Collectors of Michigan): v. 31, no. 2, p. 7-16. Another loss for the Hobby Sadly, we must report the loss another hobby giant. Roger Durand passed away Feb 6. Roger was a long-time SPMC member. He joined the society in 1970 as member #2816 and was awarded honorary life member #21. In 2016, he was named to the SPMC Hall of Fame. Mr. Durand served the society tirelessly serving as President from 1987-89 VP 1983-87, Treasurer 1979-83, Librarian 1994-99 and served as chair of the Wismer committee in 1991-1992. Besides these services, he won multiple SPMC awards including a literary award in 1978, award of merit in 1981 and ’90 and placed the best- of show exhibit in 1989 and again in 1992. He was named a Numismatic Ambassador as well. Roger was a prolific author and had almost 50 articles he penned that were published in Paper Money. He also wrote a Wismer book, “Notes of Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations” that debuted in 1981 as well as a series of 13 books on vignettes and in 2011 he published a profusely illustrated 85-page book, "The Fabulous Roger H. Durand Santa Claus Notes Collection." Mr. Durand also served the hobby as president of the Currency Club of New England, president of the Western Rhode Island Coin and Stamp Association and president of the Pawtucket Numismatic Society. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 106 HONG KONG SHANGHAI LONDONMUNICH SARASOTA Collect With Confidence Worldwide For more information, visit: NGCcoin.com PMGnotes.com NGC and PMG have earned the trust of collectors and dealers worldwide through their unrivaled expertise, stability and integrity. Together, the companies have certified more coins and paper money than any other grading services, and operate the largest network of global submission locations. In fact, NGC and PMG now operate more than 82,000 square feet of purpose-built offices dedicated to expert certification services, including expanded locations that recently opened in Hong Kong and Munich. As part of the Certified Collectibles Group (CCG), NGC and PMG share a long-term management team, as well as the financial backing to support their industry-leading guarantees of authenticity and grade. That’s strength and stability you can trust. 20 GLOBAL LOCATIONS 50 GRADING EXPERTS 47,000,000 COLLECTIBLES GRADED 46 YEARS OF COMBINED INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP 19-CCGPA-4959_CCG_Ad_NGC_PMG_Stability_PaperMoney_MayJune_2019.indd 1 4/1/19 11:14 AM Bankers Go for Outing, Wind Up in Jail by Nick Bruyer Charles F. Knapp was an ambitious and resourceful pioneer. Born in 1797 in Colchester, New York, he started life as a farmer, became a teacher and then a merchant. Life in Colchester during the early 1800s revolved around lumber, hide tanning and agriculture. Eventually Charles Knapp built stakes in a lumber mill and a tannery. The lumber industry depended upon the rivers running through the town, especially the west branch of the Delaware . Each spring when the snow melted and the river rose, huge rafts of logs were lashed together, some 60 feet wide and 200 feet long, and floated down the Delaware to market in Philadelphia. There the logs were consumed for buildings, ships and wagons, among other things. Aside from the river, transportation to and from Colchester was difficult. A state road did not reach it until 1820 and the first train did not arrive until 1906. So when Charles F. Knapp heard that in 1848 the New York and Erie Railroad would extend its line to a spot about 30 miles downstream on the Delaware known as “Deposit”, he decided to relocate his businesses there. The railroad would attract business and allow his products to move in and out of town faster and cheaper. “Deposit” got its name from a bend in the Delaware river where timber cutters stockpiled vast numbers of logs for the winter. There they awaited until the annual spring “freshets” engorged the river. In 1851 the Village of Deposit was incorporated and Charles F. Knapp was elected its first president. When the virgin forests were cut from the valley around Deposit, farming took root. Charles Knapp listened carefully to the aspirations and troubles of the town’s citizens. The lumber cutters sought loans to get them through the winter, while the farmers needed credit to get them through the summer. Knapp decided to sell his businesses and dedicate himself to banking. On February 23, 1853 he became “Charles Knapp, Banker”. On February 20, 1854 it became The Deposit Bank. Two years later he converted to a state bank association, with capital of $125,000, and issued circulating bank notes. He maintained control by purchasing two-thirds of the shares and brought in family members to help run the bank. Initially the Knapp bank conducted its business at 44 Pine Street, a building adjacent to Charles F. Knapp’s residence. Under his auspices the bank soon became the dominant economic force in the village. On August 1, 1864 it reorganized as The Deposit National Bank, charter number 472, capitalized at $125,000. Charles F. Knapp continued as its president, with his son, 21-year-old James H. Knapp, as cashier. In 1866 another of Knapp’s sons, Charles J. Knapp, was brought into the bank as a teller after graduating from college. It was the next step in the building of a banking family that would span more than a half century. Charles F. Knapp strongly opposed slavery, so he was among the first to join the new Republican Party. He successfully ran for Congress and served in the 41st United States Congress, (March 4, 1869 – March 4, 1871). Logs cut and stockpiled the prior season were lashed together into huge rafts and floated down the Delaware river to Philadelphia in the spring. (Colchesterhistoricalsociety.org) In 1853 Charles Knapp founded the first bank in Deposit. (Topographical Atlas of Broome County, New York, S. N. & D. G. Beers, 1866) The original Deposit National Bank building was restored and is now a museum. (Deposit Historical Society) SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 108 Merged with the First National Bank of Adams The First National bank of Adams, New York was organized August 27, 1863, as charter #71. Solon D. Hungerford was president. Ten years later, on March 17, 1873, it was merged into the Deposit National bank. National bank notes surviving from this bank are among the rarest of the first 100 charters, with but a single $5 note reported. The capitalization of the Deposit National Bank increased from 125,000 to $200,000. In 1874 it moved into a new building at 145 Second Street. In September of that year the founder’s son, Charles J. Knapp, was elected Cashier and James H. Knapp was promoted to vice president. Just five years after the bank increased its capital, in 1878 it cut its capitalization in half, to just $100,000. The reason given by the Knapps was that the reduction would “avoid the payment of excessive taxes”. At the beginning of 1880 family patriarch Charles F. Knapp and his sons held all key positions at the bank. Son James H. Knapp was vice president, Charles J. Knapp was cashier and Herbert W. Knapp was assistant cashier. On May 14 their father passed away at the age of 83. Soon thereafter his three sons took full control: James became president, Charles J. became vice president and Herbert became cashier. Although James H. Knapp led the bank as president for the next seven years, his health steadily declined until he died on November 13, 1887. At this point the presidency of the bank fell to his younger brother, Charles J. Knapp. Just three months later, the second of the three brothers, Cashier Herbert Knapp, died on Feb. 13, 1888. He was only 38 years old. In 1873 the First National Bank of Adams was merged into the Deposit National Bank. Only this First Charter $5 note is known to survive. (Heritage Auctions)   Bank founder Charles F. Knapp built an impressive mansion in Deposit (author’s collection) First charter $1 note signed by the founders’ sons James H. Knapp as V.P. and Herbert V. Knapp as Cashier. Both died three months apart (author’s Collection) SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 109 In the space of three months the Deposit National Bank lost two of the three sons founder Charles F. Knapp had groomed to lead it. The remaining son and bank president, Charles Junius Knapp, was 44 years old. Like his father, he was not only a banker but an aspiring politician. Charles J. had been twice elected to the New York State Assembly, in 1886 and 1888. Moreover, he would soon be elected to a seat in in the 51st U.S. Congress, holding office from March 4, 1889, to March 3, 1891. He served on the House Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures. Certainly Charles J. Knapp’s time in the state and federal legislatures expanded his horizons. He rubbed elbows with constituents from his district as well as other bankers and financiers. He began to ponder what opportunities might be found beyond the little town of Deposit. An idea began to germinate In 1887 New York passed the Trust Companies Act. While trusts perform functions such as acting as trustees for estates, corporate mortgages and as agents, underwriters and registrars for various financial transactions, they may also perform bank-like functions such as accepting deposits and purchasing loans. Before 1900 there was relatively little regulatory control over trust companies. In 1890 Charles J. relocated with his family 30 miles west of Deposit to the city of Binghamton, New York, to organize a trust company. His wife, the former Charlotte Augusta Ford, appreciated the move, as her family lived in Binghamton. On September 8, 1890 Charles J. Knapp incorporated the Binghamton Trust Company, with himself as its president and largest shareholder. Doubtless Charles J. took advantage of his family’s decades-long banking reputation, his standing as a U.S. Congressman, and his pledge to provide the majority of the trust company’s capitalization in order to attract the Binghamton community to invest in his firm. His majority control over the business ensured that he would have the final say as to how and where the trust company’s assets were invested. Moreover, he appointed his son, F. Percy Knapp, as cashier. Dual Presidency Despite his relocation to Binghamton and new trust company duties, Charles J. Knapp continued as president of the Deposit National Bank. However, for the day-to-day management of the Deposit business he relied upon his nephew, cashier Charles P. Knapp. 27-year-old Charles P. Knapp was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. As an only child, his parents lavished attention upon him. They sent him to Phillips Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, one of the best preparatory schools in America. After graduating in 1884 he was promptly ushered into the Deposit National Bank as a teller. Young Charles P. was ambitious, confident and groomed for success. According to a biographical sketch published in 1893, “He has contributed largely, both in money and influence, to advance the interests of this part of the county. A glance at the village of Deposit will indicate what manner of men have the controlling power, and will show the sort of public spirit they possess. The electric lights, water-works, soldiers' monument, and various other public improvements would be creditable to a town four times its size and Mr. Knapp has done his full share toward bringing these about.” The story went on to note that Charles P. was the president of the Deposit Board of Trade and a shareholder and “prime mover” of the Deposit Electric Company--- all of this in a village of a little more than 1,500 people. The Knapp family wasted no time tapping the funds of the Binghamton Trust Company. As the dual president of both institutions, Charles J. implemented a program in which loans generated by Deposit were sold at a discount to Binghamton. The immediate consequence was to greatly increase the amount of cash to invest in Deposit, far beyond what had been available from the local loggers, farmers and merchants. The bank’s first 1882 $5 Brown Back, Serial no. 1-A, was signed by brothers James H. and Herbert W. Knapp. Certainly it was saved by one of them as a souvenir.   SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 110 Charles P. sprinkled money like magic fairy dust throughout Deposit. His bank’s deep pockets facilitated industrial growth, including a pearl button factory, sled factory, glove factory, overall factory, cigar factory and in 1894 Gail Borden’s Condensed Milk Plant #4. In 1894 the Knapps constructed a much larger banking house on Front Street. The Deposit National Bank commenced business there on March 9, 1895. They reserved the third story for the use of community organizations such as the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Improved Order of Redmen. Charles P. organized and led a musical group known as “Knapp’s Millionaire Band”, which performed there for the Monday Evening Dance Club. The Deposit Bank Goes Private In 1901 the directors of the Deposit National Bank held a meeting at which they made a surprising decision: They voted to surrender the bank’s national charter and become a private firm, to be known as the Knapp Brothers Bank. They published an announcement that the Deposit National Bank would accept no new business, but the Knapp Brothers would. One can only imagine the concerns raised among depositors and creditors alike about why the Knapps made this change. By giving up its national charter and becoming a private entity, the Deposit bank eliminated much regulation and oversight. The Knapp’s banking activities in Deposit became opaque to all but the family’s inner circle. Some of the Knapp’s bank loans were successful, but others soured. By the turn of the 20th century demand for pearl buttons faded, forcing the factory to close. In 1902 it was converted into a silk factory, with an investment in new machinery. Unfortunately that business soon failed as well. James Knapp Reeve James Knapp Reeve was an author, editor and literary publisher. He was born in 1856 about fourteen miles from Deposit, in Hancock, New York. Reeve was related to the Knapps on his mother’s side through his grandfather, James Wright Knapp, a brother of the Deposit bank’s founder. In 1894 James Knapp Reeve co-wrote 1001 Places to Sell Manuscripts: The American Writer's Yearbook and Directory to Publications. In 1895 he began publishing the magazine A Journal of Information for Literary Workers, one of several resources he created for aspiring writers seeking to be published. He served as the editor of the short- story magazine The Gray Goose and produced a growing number of self-help literary publications. In 1899 he published a manuscript by a then unknown writer named Jack London, entitled “On the Writer’s Philosophy of Life” in The Editor magazine. Reeve called his publishing house the James Knapp Reeve Company. The largest and most successful of Reeve’s publications was Outing magazine. Outing began in 1882 as Wheelman, "an illustrated magazine of cycling literature and news". It went through several changes over the years until it morphed into Outing, a magazine dedicated to sports, adventure, travel and fiction. The circumstances under which James Knapp Reeve met up with his distant relatives in Deposit are unknown, but the consequences were enormous. Reeve’s enthusiasm for his publishing business impressed the Knapp family. Reeves had the writers, the illustrators and knowledge. He suggested that with more capital, he could bring move his company to Deposit and grow it. The Knapps had money and were looking for ways to reinvigorate the town’s declining business. They had a large, empty building--- the old Pearl Button Factory. They showed it to Reeves and he declared that if gutted and remodeled, it could be reborn as a suitable publishing plant. It would bring hundreds of jobs and new prosperity to the community. In 1904 the Knapp family bought a controlling interest in the James Knapp Reeve Company from Reeve and a co-owner, Caspar Whitney. They changed its name to the Outing Publishing Company and appointed Knapp Brothers Bank cashier Charles P. Knapp as its president. James Knapp Reeve became its Secretary and operating manager. Caspar Whitney was editor in chief of the magazine. However, his name also was used as president of the company. A new 3-story building was constructed for the Deposit bank in 1895. It still stands today at 105 Front Street. (Loopnet.com) SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 111 Outing’s publishing plant was moved into the building formerly occupied by the button Company. The space was gutted and rebuilt into a printing and publishing operation, with five new presses. The company continued to have offices in New York City at 35-37 West 31st Street, but its headquarters and publishing plant were in Deposit. The freshly recapitalized Outing Publishing Company opened for business on January 1, 1905. The impact on the town was dramatic. The company employed 175. Due to the rising volume of mail from the publisher, the post office was upgraded to a First-Class office, with free mail delivery to the citizens. Outing even created its own baseball team. Among its players were author Zane Grey and his brother, who played second and third base, respectively. The new owners began to rapidly expand Outing’s publishing business with loans provided by the Knapp bank. Outing became the nation’s leading outdoors magazine. Its publishing plant was the largest outside of a major U.S. city. For years James Knapp Reeve had been writing “how to” books and articles for aspiring writers. Now he had the power to publish them. Reeve was buying and publishing the works of America's top writers and illustrators, including Frederick Remington, N. C. Wyeth ("In the Crystal Depths", 1906), Jack London (White Fang) and Zane Grey. In 1906 the company ramped up the publication of hardcover books with titles such as “The Book of Camping and Woodcraft”, “The Story of the Outlaw” and “Motoring Abroad”. Meanwhile, the Knapp Brothers Bank worked feverishly to expand their access to cash. In 1906 they opened a branch in the town of Callicoon, about 37 miles southeast of Deposit. Yet the appetite for cash to fund the expanding Outing publishing empire seemed insatiable. Knapp family ownership and control of three companies--- the Binghamton Trust Company (Charles J. Knapp, President, son Percy Knapp, Cashier), the Knapp Brothers Bank (Charles J. Knapp, Pres, Charles P. Knapp, Cashier), and the Outing Publishing Company (Charles P. Knapp, Pres) --- created a perfect opportunity for self- dealing. In 1907 the Outing Publishing Co. issued $300,000 in mortgage bonds, $290,000 of which were sold to the Binghamton Trust Company. Attorney Taylor Moore, while attending a meeting of the board of directors of Outing, advised them that issuing the bonds was illegal since no notice of a meeting to decide the issuance had been published. He later met with Charles J. Knapp at the Binghamton Trust Co. and told him flatly that the bonds were illegal and that the trust company should reject them. His advice was ignored. (Binghamton Press, Feb. 13, 1914) Old postcard shows the Outing publishing plant on Second Street in Deposit.  Outing published Zane Grey’s novel The Last of the Plainsmen in 1908. (Wikipedia) 1905 stock certificate issued after the Knapp family bought control of the company and changed its name to Outing Publishing. James Knapp Reeve signed as Treasurer and Caspar Whitney as President. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 112 Did the allure of rubbing elbows with the glittering luminaries of art and literature blind the Knapps to the financial realities of running a publishing business? Perhaps they imagined creating a publishing empire as mogul William Randolph Hearst was doing? With too rapid growth and a lack of controls, Outing Publishing Co. began losing money. According to company director Allan C. Hoftman, the company “took over the three Reeves magazines and branched out extensively in the publishing business. A large printing plant was acquired, and considerable book work and job printing undertaken. The expenses of the company have been heavy and the company has had labor troubles.” On February 1, 1909 a new state law went into effect requiring all trust companies to keep a cash reserve of at least 10% of their aggregate deposits. That meant the Binghamton Trust Company needed to have $295,000 in cash on hand. If they were short then they would have to cease making new loans and pressure their borrowers, especially if those borrowers were in arrears. Sixty days after the new law Charles J. Knapp, acting as president of the trust company, clearly was distraught. On April 5 he sent an angry message to his nephew, Charles P. at the Knapp bank in Deposit, demanding to know “why in hell don’t you come across?” He was referring to an overdue payment to the trust company. Three days later the reason became clear. “KNAPP BANKS FAIL; BIG LOAN TO OUTING” So ran the headline in the New York Times the day after the Knapp brothers’ banks in Deposit and Callicoon and the Binghamton Trust Company all closed their doors on April 8, 1909. According to the story, loans by the banks to the Outing Publishing Company amounted to over $700,000, a staggering sum considering that the total deposits in the Knapp Brothers Bank were $650,000. According to the story, “The failure of the three institutions came practically without warning except to members of the Knapp firm. The Directors of the trust company were called together last night, and were informed that the Knapp banks were about to close their doors.” Directors of the bank expressed optimism that they would soon reopen. They called in the New York State Banking Department to maintain order and prevent a run on the banks. However, as they sifted through the bank’s records the receivers became alarmed. The Knapp Brothers bank had virtually no assets, save for a few loans to local farmers. As the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York reported years later, “... if the Binghamton Trist Company had failed to make loans to the firm of Knapp Brothers, the latter would have been forced to retire from business, for they were unquestionably insolvent between the establishing of these private banks (Deposit and Callicoon) in 1903 until their bankruptcy in 1909 … the loans from time to time from the Binghamton Trust Company were made for the purpose of maintaining the credit of the Knapp Brothers, who were constantly engaged in highly speculative enterprises, which reasonably honest and intelligent men must have known could have but one result.” The court said “There was an overdraft on the part of Knapp Brothers almost continuously from the organization of the private bank to the date of their closing, and this overdraft was continuously growing through manipulations designed to preserve the credit of the Knapp Brothers.” Over time the Knapps had funneled over $600,000 from the trust company to their private bank. Through all the turmoil the Outing Publishing Company remained in business and kept busy filling orders. However, it was not long before James Knapp Reeve was fired. As a local newspaper observed, “The general feeling is that Mr. Reeve had much to do with whatever extravagance there was in the management of the Outing Company”. (Binghamton Press and Leader, April 21, 1909). Eventually Outing was placed in the hands of receivers. They were stunned to discover that the firm routinely issued checks payable “to bearer”, with rubber stamped signatures of the president, Charles P. Knapp, and treasurer James Knapp Reeve. The lack of financial controls and accountability was jaw-dropping. (Binghamton Press and Leader, April 21, 1909) Cover of the June 1909 issue of Outing magazine. (Courtesy Yesterday's Gallery and Babylon Revisited) SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 113 Bankers Indicted Charles J. Knapp, president of both the Knapp Brothers bank and the Binghamton Trust Company, and his nephew Charles P. Knapp, cashier of the Knapp bank and president of Outing Publishing Company, both were indicted by a grand jury for criminally transferring money to an institution known to be insolvent. Charles P. was convicted of bank fraud and sentenced to prison on June 24, 1910. Charles J. was acquitted in 1913. Three years later he died at his home in Binghamton Neither the Knapp Brothers bank nor the Binghamton Trust Company ever re-opened. the trust company’s creditors included the City of Binghamton, which had $65,000 in deposits as well as $47,000 in court trust funds. Eventually creditors received fifty cents on the dollar. Most Knapp family members declared bankruptcy, as did Caspar Whitney. As for the Outing Publishing Company, receivers were appointed and it was sold at public auction. On August 24, 1909, the building and grounds were sold for $3,000. The publishing entity moved to Boston and continued in business under new ownership until 1923. Over sixty years later Raymond E. Ruegger wrote in his Passing the Time newspaper column that the failure of the Knapp Brothers bank “dealt the community a stunning blow, reaching its very economical foundations --- the scars of which are still in evidence”. Today a few remnants remain of the Knapp family banking and publishing businesses. Redeemed $1 and $10 obsolete bank notes of the original Deposit Bank reside in the Deposit Historical Museum. Three Original Series $1 notes, a $5 (serial no.1), a $10 (serial no. 1) and a $20 1882 Brownback note survive from the Deposit National Bank. The first building constructed to house the bank has been restored and continues life as the home of the Deposit Historical Society. As for Outing, the magazines and books it published are now collector’s items, especially those featuring great authors and illustrators such as Jack London, Zane Grey and Maxfield Parrish.   Sources  Binghamton Trust Company Failure, Wikipedia.com  Deposit Historical Society, deposithistoricalsociety.  “Knapp Banks Fail; Big Loan to Outing”, New York Times, NY NY 10 Apr 1909.  “Knapp Brothers continued in business until the close of business April 8, 1909, when they failed.” The Federal Reporter: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit and District Courts of the United States, Vols 241-242 p. 540.  Knapp, Charles P., ---Biographical Review, The Leading Citizens of Delaware County, New York. Biographical Review Publishing Company, 1893  Reeves, James Knapp, “Widely Known Author Dies at Home”, The Dayton Herald, Dayton OH 25 Oct 1933 p. 16. The obituary provides a brief summary of Reeve’s career.  Ruegger, Raymond E., Passing the Time with “Vic”; History of Deposit, New York, Deposit Community Historical Society, Deposit, NY 2007 SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 114 Lyn Knight Currency Auct ions If you are buying notes... You’ll find a spectacular selection of rare and unusual currency offered for sale in each and every auction presented by Lyn Knight Currency Auctions. Our auctions are conducted throughout the year on a quarterly basis and each auction is supported by a beautiful “grand format” catalog, featuring lavish descriptions and high quality photography of the lots. Annual Catalog Subscription (4 catalogs) $50 Call today to order your subscription! 800-243-5211 If you are selling notes... Lyn Knight Currency Auctions has handled virtually every great United States currency rarity. We can sell all of your notes! Colonial Currency... Obsolete Currency... Fractional Currency... Encased Postage... Confederate Currency... United States Large and Small Size Currency... National Bank Notes... Error Notes... Military Payment Certificates (MPC)... as well as Canadian Bank Notes and scarce Foreign Bank Notes. We offer: Great Commission Rates Cash Advances Expert Cataloging Beautiful Catalogs Call or send your notes today! If your collection warrants, we will be happy to travel to your location and review your notes. 800-243-5211 Mail notes to: Lyn Knight Currency Auctions P.O. Box 7364, Overland Park, KS 66207-0364 We strongly recommend that you send your material via USPS Registered Mail insured for its full value. Prior to mailing material, please make a complete listing, including photocopies of the note(s), for your records. We will acknowledge receipt of your material upon its arrival. If you have a question about currency, call Lyn Knight. He looks forward to assisting you. 800-243-5211 - 913-338-3779 - Fax 913-338-4754 Email: lyn@lynknight.com - support@lynknight.c om Whether you’re buying or selling, visit our website: www.lynknight.com Fr. 379a $1,000 1890 T.N. Grand Watermelon Sold for $1,092,500 Fr. 183c $500 1863 L.T. Sold for $621,000 Fr. 328 $50 1880 S.C. Sold for $287,500 Lyn Knight Currency Auctions Deal with the Leading Auction Company in United States Currency Major Upham’s Coupons by Terry A. Bryan The Wisconsin Gubernatorial election raised an issue about private scrip issued by the Republican candidate’s company. Although his record as a manufacturer was comparatively paternalistic for his time, William Henry Upham (1841-1924) was faced with partisanship from his employees and townsfolk. He won over the Democrat incumbent to become Governor for one term, 1895- 1897. Upham was born in Massachusetts into a family that had arrived shortly after the Pilgrims. The family moved through Niles, Michigan and Racine, Wisconsin. His school in Racine was the first public school in Wisconsin. He enlisted in a Wisconsin regiment in the spring 1861 and received a chest wound by July at First Manassas. The Confederates overran the hospital area, and Upham was captured and taken to the infamous Libby Prison in Richmond. The Wisconsin unit’s surgeon saved his life. A friend saw him hit, assumed that nobody could live after such a wound, and the folks at home organized a memorial. The eloquent funeral oration was reprinted in area newspapers. A Wisconsin Senator arranged for Lincoln to meet the paroled POW in Washington. Lincoln desired information about prison conditions and the Richmond situation. From Lincoln, Upham received placement at West Point, and he continued in the Army until 1869. His notable service was as Officer of the Guard at Fortress Monroe at Newport News. He spent many hours in conversation with his star prisoner, President Jefferson Davis. In 1871, a new town was being laid out in northern Wisconsin, and Upham arrived there with brother Charles to start a sawmill and shingle mill. The family arrived at the right time to exploit what must have seemed like an inexhaustible supply of wood. The raw new town of Marshfield had their major industry and employers in the Upham Brothers. By 1895, they were said to “own just about everything in the city”. William built an impressive mansion in 1880, today headquarters of the North Wood County Historical Society. The brothers expanded into furniture, veneer, retail, flour milling and grain brokerage. By 1890, they owned the local trolley company, the waterworks and the electric plant. They were major investors in the Wisconsin Central Rail Road that carried their products nationwide. A furniture retailers’ journal described their products as cheap, medium- and high-grade chamber suits [sic], odd dressers, chiffoniers, sideboards and buffets” in 1890. Their manufacturing company lasted until 1927. Upham entered politics as 3-term mayor of Marshfield in the 1880s. As the town’s leading employer, mayor, and businessman, he was in a position to lead rebuilding efforts when practically the entire community burned in 1887. The disaster was ignited by a fire at the Upham lumber mill. The town recovered, and many wooden buildings were replaced in brick within months. The Upham family contributed greatly to relief efforts, highly praised by townsfolk. It has little to do with this story, but repeated in the local newspaper was an episode that makes reading local history worthwhile. An elderly gentleman died in a nearby town. His family hitched up an ox cart to travel to Marshfield to obtain a casket from the Upham furniture factory. At the approach to the town, they could see the flames and smoke. Almost everything in sight was ablaze. An employee was hailed by the family, and he pushed a 25¢ scrip from Marshfield, Wisconsin proved to be a hot topic in the 1894 Wisconsin Gubernatorial election. In 1879 the business was C.M. Upham and Brother. (Stack’s Bowers Galleries) William Henry Upham, entrepreneur, soldier, politician. He was elected Governor during troubled economic times. Upham Manufacturing Company started with wood products and became a conglomerate. William Upham built a mansion in 1880, now used by the local historical society in Marshfield, Wisconsin. It survived the Great Fire of 1887. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 116 casket out of an upper story window. It fell, breaking on one corner, but the relatives were glad to get it. The loaded ox cart left Marshfield for the four-hour journey home. The Upham Manufacturing Company Store was one structure that burned. It took up temporary quarters in the street. A large brick building was built next door. This building still stands, considerably modernized on a main corner downtown. The Upham store was “the largest general retail store in the West” during Upham’s Governorship. In 1894, the Uphams apparently did not own the local newspaper, but their store was described as follows: “anything that goes to furnish a home or anything worn by man, woman or child can be found in stock. The establishment is divided in into a number of departments, such as dress goods, silks, fancy goods, notions, cloaks, suits, clothing, boots and shoes, groceries, hats and caps, gents furnishing goods, carpets and rugs, curtains, draperies, and many others. Each of these departments is in charge of a capable clerk, and all under the supervision of the manager, so that the vast business mechanism of the store moves like clockwork. The establishment is provided with every modern convenience for transacting business such as cash carrier systems” [Assumed to be spring-powered trolleys, shot on wires to a central cashier station]. One might guess that the editor could not afford to offend the leading family. It is not surprising to know that William Upham was also President of a private bank which took Federal charter #4573 in 1891 to become the FNB of Marshfield. He resigned from bank office when he became Governor. Alas, neither Heritage nor Stack’s Bowers archives has an image of a note with Upham’s signature. During his campaign for Wisconsin Governor in 1894, William H. Upham was severely criticized by the opposition for his “coupons”. Factions in Marshfield and surrounding communities complained that the family companies often paid in scrip or coupon books. The Major’s coupons were disparaged, perhaps not easily converted to cash, and the company store was alleged to charge above-market prices. A few workers came out publicly, and they said that many more were cheated of cash wages. This was apparently an instance where Upham was singled out from among a large number of employers. In fact, many companies in Wisconsin were paying in scrip and coupon books. Considering the economy of the area and of the times, the system was probably reasonably fair and ethical at most firms. Upham scrip examples found on auction websites are dated 1879 and 1886. No coupon books are found on the web or in searchable Wisconsin history museums. Denominations found were 5¢, 10¢, 25¢, and $1. The fractional notes are printed on the reverse in color with a sunburst. A central circle specifies, “wholesale & retail dealers, dry goods, clothing, gent’s furnishing goods, hats & caps, boots & shoes, groceries, The Upham company store burned, along with the rest of the town of Marshfield in 1887 A temporary store was erected in the street (center) while the brick replacement was built (on the left). 5¢ Upham scrip of 1886. Scrip and coupon books were still used after the disastrous fire. (Heritage Auction Galleries) Major Upham’s Coupon March rallied the delegates at the Wisconsin Republican Convention in 1894. The composer dedicated it to the People of Wisconsin and to William Upham. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 117 provisions, hardware, cutlery, mechanics tools, etc. Upham Manufacturing Co. One Price Only”. The scrip issues continued after the fire to become an election issue. The hot topic was taken to extremes; alarmists suggested that large employers would all begin to practice unethical treatment of workers. This local company affair became linked to other aspects of public policy. Legislation was proposed to make scrip illegal. It became so raucous that a backlash carried the Republican Upham over the top, beating the Democrat incumbent and Populist and Prohibition candidates. Upham was followed by nine more Republican Governors. The coupon issue rallied both sides after Upham Manufacturing employees signed supportive ads. A “coupon march” fired up the delegates at the state Republican convention. Not surprising, Upham carried his own county by a large margin. A broadside signed by over 300 employees attested to the benign management of Upham, always ready to help his workers in bad times. They stated they were never forced to deal with the company store, and they did not observe prices to be any different from other town merchants. They had no trouble getting cash from the company, either. There is no evidence that other area merchants refused the scrip. The Uphams evidently made good on their obligations. Examples of the scrip are scarce. Most of the pieces sold in the last two decades were part of the Chet Krause collection. Older brother Charles (1837-1913) had settled in Shawano, Wisconsin. His prosperous store issued scrip dated 1878. Obviously similar to the Marshfield pieces, a 10¢ note is found on the web. Charles also shared in William’s business interests in Marshfield. Shortages in the money supply in northern Wisconsin required scrip issues to fill the need for circulating currency. By the time of the Wisconsin election of 1894, the Panic of 1893 and the rise of the Populist Party were ongoing. Specie was disappearing and mistrust of paper money was rampant. Undoubtedly, emergency money could inconvenience a lot of workers; however, other companies’ scrip was not targeted in political debate like Major Upham’s coupons. References: Commemorative Biographical Record of Upper Wisconsin. Beers, 1895. www.marshfieldgenealogy.com for several Upham articles. www.uphammansion.com, North Wood County Historical Society. www.wigenweb.org, articles on Charles Upham. www.wisconsinhistory.org, articles on William Upham. Upham furniture at various antique appraisal sites. Heritage Auctions, Stack’s Bowers Auctions archives, and Collector.com. Colorful reverses were used, listing the store’s stock-in-trade. (Heritage Auction Galleries) 10¢ Upham scrip promised goods “at regular prices”. (Heritage Auction Galleries) One Dollar Upham scrip, a scarce item, suggesting that Upham successfully retired his notes. (Collector.com) Brother Charles’ store in Shawano also issued scrip, this 10¢ date 1878. (Stack’s Bowers Galleries) SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 118   Sears, Roebuck & Co.’s Customer Profit Sharing Certificates, 1904-1907 by Loren Gatch It is perhaps both trite and a bit inaccurate to describe the online retailer Amazon as the Sears, Roebuck & Co. of the 21st century. Particularly during its early years of explosive growth as America’s pre-eminent mail order operation, Sears did more than just sell a wide variety of goods at cheap prices. Emerging at a juncture in American history when the country transitioned from an agricultural society to one organized around an urban, industrial economy of increasing consumer abundance, Sears and its iconic mail order catalog defined that experience of transition, and the promise of abundance, for its millions of rural customers. The company was hardly the first mail-order business to flourish in American commerce. By the time Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck put out their first general merchandise catalog in 1893, their rival Montgomery Ward had been flourishing for over twenty years. Nonetheless, Sears, Roebuck & Co. thrived by leapfrogging over and overwhelming the existing retail system of country stores. Thanks to a confluence of events and polices—the filling out of the nation’s telegraph and rail networks; the advent of Rural Free Delivery (1896); preferential mailing rates for advertising materials like catalogs; and Parcel Post service (1913)—mail-order enterprises like Sears transformed the American retail landscape. At the center of the company’s early success was the vision and impetuous temperament of its co-founder, Richard Warren Sears (1863-1914). A restless individual always open to new promotional schemes, Richard Sears was an evangelist for mail-order sales focusing on the rural market that he had grown up in and knew so well. Much like Sam Walton a half a century later, Sears stressed low prices, low profit margins, and quick inventory turnover juiced by massive advertising campaigns that sought, above all, to place the company’s increasingly-fat catalog in as many hands as possible. Indeed, it was his distinctive advertising tone and style that represented Sears’s signature contribution to the company. According to one history of the company’s early years, Richard Sears’s promotional pitches “were the horror of advertising men … he crammed every inch with tightly packed agate type, and he mortised his illustrations to conserve every drop of space …” Nonetheless, as demanding as it was to look at and read, Sears’s copy worked. “While professional advertising men would now stand aghast at the jolting, uncouth nature of Sears’s ads, Sears himself basked in the reflection of the golden harvest of orders he was reaping.” This article examines one small part of the early history of Sears, Roebuck & Co.’s marketing efforts: its customer profit sharing plan, which rewarded customer loyalty with certificates that could be spent for premiums offered by the company. Introduced in the 1904 catalog but abandoned by 1907, the plan was promoted by the same breathless and obsessive advertising that was Richard Sears’s trademark. Richard W. Sears, posing at his desk with catalog. (Source: Library of Congress  SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 120 How the Sears Customer Profit Sharing Plan Worked The Sears customer profit-sharing plan must be distinguished from its employee profit-sharing plan, which was an entirely separate thing that began at a much later date. What Sears termed its customer profit-sharing actually assumed two forms. The first, undertaken between 1900 and 1901, was a simple proposition to pay customers 7% on any funds they chose to deposit with the company, from a minimum of $5 to a maximum of $1000. Customers could thus keep these interest-earning balances “guaranteed” with the company, subject to withdrawal by mailed notice or (as the company hoped) until they were applied to purchases from the Sears catalog. In a little pamphlet entitled “Customers Profit Sharing 7%”, the company spelled out the terms of this plan, which among other things limited the number of accounts to one per family and, reflecting the rural market it targeted, simply excluded any resident of Chicago from participating (as well as Sears’s employees themselves). With language that no actual bank could legally use, the company promised that “everything we own, hold or control is a guarantee to you that the money you send to us will be returned, all of it, whenever you ask for it…you are secured in the amount you may send, far more securely than you could possibly be secured in any real estate mortgage, bond, or bank certificate…” Thus setting itself up as a banking institution, the Sears plan predictably aroused the ire of real banks that resented the competition. Bankers in Kansas complained to their state commissioner that “a vast amount of idle money in Kansas is being sent to the Chicago mail order house” and pleaded with authorities to put a stop to it. Apparently opposition from bankers was sufficient to shut this first plan down, and mention of it quickly disappeared from the catalog. The second customer profit sharing plan, operating between 1904 and 1907, took the more conventional form of certificates issued that were redeemable against a premium list which Sears published both as a sixteen-page appendix to the main catalog and as a separate pamphlet. Inaugurated with Catalogue No. 114 of 1904, the plan began with a minimum amount of $100, meaning a customer had to have spent at least that amount in U.S. funds with the company in order to accumulate the equivalent in certificates that could be spent for items on the premium list, the cheapest of which were priced at $100 and upwards (in premium certificates). Richard Sears was not at all reticent about promoting the premium plan, and weekly magazines across the country were flooded with his typically densely-packed advertisements, relentlessly touting the benefits of profit sharing and the availability of “free” premiums (small town newspapers tended to avoid Sears copy, out of deference to local merchants’ hostility towards the mail order giant). Customers were also encouraged to pool the orders of their neighbors in order to acquire more quickly the minimum certificate amount. On page after page, the Sears catalog itself pounded home the benefits awaiting holders of profit-sharing certificates. In chatty “KIND FRIEND” letters that went out to directly to the company’s vast customer base under his facsimile signature, Richard Sears extolled the certificates’ virtues as if they were instruments of some perpetual motion machine of savings, as greater sales volumes made possible greater discounts, which in turn increased sales. Pleading repeatedly with customers to order their copies of the new Fall and Winter catalog, the company insisted in one circular from early August 1904 that new premium plan “does not add one cent to the price at which we sell goods; on the contrary…this profit-sharing plan makes for still lower prices, prices very much lower than any other house can ever attempt to meet.” For its part, Montgomery Ward countered by introducing its own Customer Dividend Certificate plan, though with less of a splash than its rival. Sears, Roebuck & Co.’s customer profit sharing was unusual in one respect. Instead of pricing its premiums in terms of fractions or multiples of “coupons”, as was commonly done by other premium plans, Sears stuck with nominal dollar amounts. Certificates were issued, dollar for dollar, in the amount of the customers’ purchases. This meant that certificates typically bore irregular denominations that were written on the certificates as if they were company checks, but redeemable only against the Sears premium list (some certificates did come in pre-printed, round-number denominations). In addition, each certificate issued bore an invoice number that corresponded to the original purchase, as well as a line where the customer’s name was to be entered, thus assuring that certificates weren’t transferable between Sears, Roebuck & Co.’s banking plan.  SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 121 people (some versions came instead with a pre-printed instruction that assigned the certificate to “The Customer Whose Name is Recorded Under the Above Number”).  What this professed generosity actually meant in terms of customer value was difficult to pin down. Obviously, the purchasing power of the dollar-denominated certificates had to be vastly lower than the customer’s initial retail outlay lest the premium program bankrupt the company. Prices of the premium items were make-believe amounts that bore no resemblance to what a customer would have paid in actual funds. For example, in one typical advertisement, appearing in the January 1906 issue of The Farmer’s Wife, the Sears premium list offered a twelve-gauge, breech-loading shotgun (no make or model given, but single-barrel pictured) for “free” in exchange for $50 in profit sharing certificates. For an approximate comparison, in the Sears Catalogue No. 116 of 1906, the cheapest shotgun of that description retailed for $2.96. Likewise, a “handsome, overstuffed, big, massive” Morris chair listed in that same advertisement for $50 in profit sharing certificates could be had, according to the catalog, for as little as $3.45. Both examples implied an actual premium value of between 6 and 7 percent of Sears’ retail prices—generous, but not at all out of line with the 8 percent retail value which United Cigar Stores claimed to be offering its coupon-clutching customers through its own premium program. Customer Profit Sharing: Too Much of a Good Thing Sears, Roebuck & Co.’s sales volume soared during those years. Its customer profit-sharing plan was surely a factor in that growth. First in 1906 and then in 1907, Richard Sears claimed with great advertising fanfare to have “doubled” the value of the premium certificates by lowering the minimum required for the cheapest item first to $50 and later to $25. Again, these amounts represented certificate prices, not actual dollar prices, and the true premium cost to the company depended upon which items it chose to make available for redemption. To counterbalance these generous moves, the redemption terms of the certificates were tightened somewhat: those from 1904 bore no redemption deadline, while those issued in 1906 stipulated that were good for two years, and those from 1907 for one year. Yet the growing cost and scope of the plan became a concern within the company. In the two years from 1905 to 1907, profit sharing expenses ballooned from 10 percent of the advertising budget (inclusive of catalog issuing) to over 40 per cent. Customer correspondence related to profit-sharing swamped the company’s communications, interfering with its regular business. The growing liability posed by unredeemed certificates quickly cast a shadow over the company’s profitability, a problem made worse by the sheer fact that the company hadn’t kept track of how large that financial obligation was. As Sears planned for a public stock offering in 1906, a report compiled that June for Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs, the two underwriters of the issue, underscored the potential hit to the company’s bottom line. Based on prevailing redemption rates, Sears managers guessed that only 43 percent of the certificates would ever be cashed in, at a cost to the company of some 3 ½ percent of the sales corresponding to those certificates. Surely this was an underestimate; at about the same time, United Cigar Stores claimed redemption rates of its own premium coupons in excess of 80 percent. Of greater concern to the New York money men, Sears hadn’t bothered to provide a fund to meet the redemption costs of its certificates. If proper provision were made for every certificate issued, downward adjustments would have to be made for 1904 and 1905 profits and that, through 1906, the report estimated that nearly half a million dollars’ worth of that year’s profit alone would be eaten up by the premium plan. For a company about to go public, this was an unsustainable trend, and Sears summarily terminated its customer profit-sharing plan in August 1907. The Profit-Sharing Certificates In general appearance, the profit-sharing certificates are impressive documents, although like the Sears catalogs and other advertisements of the time, they are characteristically dense with text. During the three years in which the profit- sharing plan operated, the certificates exhibited only minor variations in color scheme and explanatory language that seem to have reflected mostly changes in the terms and conditions of the plan. A Sears Profit Sharing Certificate issued to Mrs. Nancy L. Davis SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 122 Certificates measure 3 ¼ by 8 inches, or about the size of a typical check from a major bank of that period. The front has a thin, ornamental border, either in brown or green ink, with the monogram “SR” at the four corners. Within the field at the top center of the certificate sits the company banner, in the same color ink as the border. On one side of the banner is the field where the denomination could be written in, or printed; on the other side appears a shield medallion identifying the “series” (the maximum denomination possible). Depending on the variety, these two features appear either to the left or to the right of the banner. While all notes feature a serial number, only the later notes (from 1906-7) include spaces where there could be written in the date of issue and the invoice number of the customer’s original purchase to which the profit-sharing certificate corresponded. Just underneath the Sears Roebuck banner, still at the upper center of the certificate, is a blank line on which the customer’s name could be entered. This was a crucial feature of the document, since the profit-sharing benefit wasn’t meant to be used by anybody but the original purchaser. Thus, the name of the purchaser (or at least the invoice number of the original order) had to be on the certificate in order for the company to be able to prevent it from being transferred. Otherwise, most of the face of the certificate’s front is taken up with an ornate, verbose and somewhat legalistic description of the terms and conditions of the certificate’s use, all superimposed upon the underprint “Sears, Roebuck and Co.” in large, block letters (in either green or yellow ink). The details of this text varies, depending upon whether or not that particular certificate specifies an expiration date. At the bottom right appears a facsimile of Richard Sears’s signature. The reverse of the note consists of nothing but text which, in a more conversational style and considerable redundancy, explains the attractiveness of profit-sharing to the certificate holder. Here, the language varies according to what minimum amount ($100, $50, or $25) in certificate value the holder had to possess before being able to redeem them for premiums. Conclusion Even with the formal end to its customer profit-sharing plan in 1907, Sears, Roebuck & Co. continued to redeem the certificates that remained outstanding against its premium list and, as those stocks of premium articles dwindled, offered to accept them against future purchases. For example, in a letter dated July 1, 1908, in response to an enquiry by a Mr. H. E. Malcohn of Windsor, Maine, the company explained that, while Mr. Malcohn’s certificates had no cash redemption value, they could be applied to 5 percent of the cost of any catalog order he might make, as long as he paid the balance in cash. While a less attractive proposition, superficially, than the earlier language trumpeting the availability of “free” premium goods, this way of describing the benefits of Sears’s profit-sharing plan probably captured more accurately the true cost to the company of its premium program. Whatever overhang existed In terms of unredeemed profit-sharing certificates was worked off by the company in the form of a straight 5% discount to customer purchases. Given the competitive advantages that his company already enjoyed with rural customers eager for alternatives to the country store, Richard Sears’s short-lived embrace of profit-sharing was characteristically excessive. As the same history of the company put it, “Richard Sears was born, he lived, he died, in an age of schemes.” Always ready to try new advertising venues and promotional gimmicks, Sears nonetheless had the good sense to abandon them if they didn’t produce the desired sales results. Declining health soon led to Sears’s retirement from the company and early death by 1914. Leadership of the company was then assumed by his more disciplined and methodical partner at the time, Julius Rosenwald, who steered the company until its successful transition to a brick-and-mortar presence by 1925. Nonetheless, Richard Sears’s energy and vision represented formative influences on what became a major institution of 20th century American retailing.   REFERENCES Emmet, Boris and John E. Jeuck, Catalogs and Counters: A History of Sears, Roebuck and Company (The University of Chicago Press 1950), pp. 39 (quote), 64 (quote); 76-79. Sears, Roebuck & Co., “Customers Profit Sharing 7%”, undated pamphlet, author’s collection. Sears, Roebuck & Co., “KIND FRIEND” Circular, August 6, 1904, author’s collection. Sears, Roebuck & Co., Letter to H. E. Malcoln, July 1, 1908, author’s collection. Sears, Roebuck & Co., The Great Price Maker. Catalogue No. 116 (Chicago 1906 [Castle Books reprint]), pp. 145, 710. The Altoona Mirror [Altoona, Kansas], June 14, 1904. The Farmer’s Wife [Chicago], January 1, 1906. Wren, Donald A. and Ronald G. Greenwood, “Business Leaders: An Historical Sketch of Richard W. Sears” The Journal of Leadership Studies 5 (1998), pp. 40-49. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 123 Circulation of the State Bank of Iowa by James C. Ehrhardt The State Bank of Iowa was a very successful system, both in terms of returning profits to its shareholders and, more importantly, supplying an urgently needed, sound currency for Iowans. A number of publications ranging from academic and historical studies to personal memoirs and numismatic overviews have documented many aspects of the bank’s operation. However, few specific details of the issuance, redemption, and survival of its circulation are available. This article will attempt to fill that gap with the aid of a previously unexamined set of bank ledgers and a census of existing notes. A brief review of the historical events leading to the creation of the State Bank of Iowa will help understand the situation. When it became a territory in 1838, Iowa’s mostly rural citizens embraced the Jacksonian anti-bank philosophy; and its territorial constitution explicitly banned the charter of banks issuing currency. When statehood was granted in 1846, its constitution also banned banks of issue. However, settlers were pouring in and commerce was rapidly increasing. Growth was hampered by a scarcity of specie and a forced reliance on dubious currencies from nearby free-banking states. Eventually a second constitutional convention was called, primarily to remedy this problem. Approved on Sept. 3, 1857, the new constitution created a detailed plan for a state banking system modeled on the successful State Banks of Ohio and Indiana. It authorized the state legislature to enact a law authorizing such a system and then required a general election to approve it. The law was passed, and the voters approved it by a 92% majority. Iowans really wanted a sound currency! Can you imagine any issue today receiving a 92% approval? The law took effect July 29, 1858, eleven months after the new constitution. The new system included an administrative and oversight body known as the State Bank of Iowa which did no banking and a number of branch banks which were separate corporations operating under the governance of the State Bank. The system had a variety of requirements to foster confidence by the public. These included mandatory redemption of currency with specie, currency issuance for each branch limited to no more than twice their first $100,000 paid-in capital with declining limits thereafter, maintenance of adequate specie, all branches being responsible if one branch failed, loans and discounts limited to durations of no more than four months. Restrictions were established to limit the issuance of small denomination notes. The dollar amount of small notes compared to the total amount issued was limited as: $1 notes ≤ 10% of the total, $2 notes ≤ 10% of total, $1+$2+$3 notes ≤ 25% of total, and all notes below $10 to be no more than 50% of the total. As we shall see below, these limits played an important role in the amounts of each denomination issued. Initial Activities A state-appointed Board of Commissioners had two primary tasks before the system could begin banking: approval of applications to become branch banks and securing an appropriate currency. Over time 30 different applications for branch bank status were received, and 15 were approved. In October 1858 approvals were granted for eight branches. These were in Des Moines, Dubuque, Iowa City, Keokuk, Mount Pleasant, Muscatine, Oskaloosa, and the Merchants Branch in Davenport. In 1859 branches were approved for Burlington, Fort Madison, Lyons City, and Washington. In February 1860 McGregor was approved followed by Council Bluffs on Nov. 14, 1860. Finally, the Farmers Branch of Maquoketa was approved on Feb. 10, 1864. Except for Maquoketa, these towns were the fourteen most populous towns in the 1860 Iowa census, with populations ranging from 13,000 in Dubuque to 1,989 in McGregor. McGregor provides a useful example of the process. After its first application was rejected primarily because a majority of its stock was to be held by residents of Dubuque, a more local share drive was organized. This was more Figure 1: Stock certificate of the Fort Madison branch. Courtesy of Keokuk Public Library Figure 2: Check, Merchants Branch, Davenport. Courtesy of Keokuk Public Library SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 124 successful with 68 people and businesses signing up including 32 who invested in only one or two shares out of the 500 share initial offering. After the first eight branches were approved, a new Board of Directors took control of the system. Board members Hiram Price and Hoyt Sherman were delegated to consult with the American Bank Note Company (ABNC) in New York to obtain the new currency. After the first proposed designs were rejected by the board as “old, well-used stock,” new designs featuring vignettes and portraits more characteristic of Iowa were approved. The designs featured rural scenes, portraits of prominent Iowans, and the iconic map of Iowa on the $10 note. Notes were to be printed from two plates of four notes each, the first formatted as $1A - $1B - $2A - $5A and the other as $3A - $10A - $10B $10C. The unusual plate format must have been long planned in conjunction with the legislative restrictions on low denomination notes. Consider that three of $1-1-2-5 sheets plus one $3-10-10-10 sheet would total $60 dollars. Included would be $6 of ones and $6 of twos each comprising the 10% legal limit. Similar calculations for the other combinations mentioned above show that they also exactly meet the legal limits. The State Bank almost always issued currency to branch banks in this three-to-one ratio of $1-1-2-5 to $3-10-10-10 sheets. Before new sheets were issued to a branch bank, Elihu Baker, Registrar and Secretary to the Board, had to sign them and write a State Bank serial number on the right side of each note. Branch bank officers were responsible for adding their signatures, location, date, and branch bank serial number on the left of each note. One of the lesser duties of the Board was to procure an official seal. They selected the eagle from the Iowa territorial seal surrounded by the words “SEAL OF THE STATE BANK OF IOWA.” This was the same eagle that was used on the backs of Iowa national bank notes up until the 1890s. The eagle was also seen on checks from the Iowa City Branch and the Keokuk Branch bank as illustrated in Oakes (1982). The State Historical Society of Iowa adopted it as its logo for 150 years. Type 2 Notes Less than a year after the first notes were released, the bankers realized their designs were unsatisfactory. There was no mechanism for replacing worn notes with new ones, so they kept circulating and accumulating more wear. As a result, the hand-written information on the notes became increasingly illegible. A branch accepted notes from all the branches, but eventually these had to be returned to the originating branch to balance the books. An illegible note made that impossible. At the November 1859 Board meeting, they discussed it, but decided it was “inexpedient” to procure new plates. Six months later the problem was worse, and a subcommittee was appointed to procure new plates. In the Aug. 15, 1860, Board meeting specimens of the new notes were approved; and the Dubuque branch was authorized to receive notes from the new plates. The new design featured printed serial numbers and location of the branch with the denomination and location fine-line printed many times across the note. Both serial numbers were to restart with the number 1 for each branch (yielding two identical serial numbers), and various branches’ notes had different colors. The plate position letters were incremented to give $1C-$1D-$2B-$5B and $3B-$10D-$10E-$10F (see next page). Figure 3: Type 1 uncut sheets (State Historical Society of Iowa) SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 125 Currency Issuance In 1895 the State Historical Society of Iowa received a valuable donation of the complete set of double-entry accounting bank ledgers from the Iowa City Branch and its successor, the Iowa City National Bank, including the circulation book for branch bank and the minutes of Board of Commissioners and Directors. The 50 volumes of these ledgers were the primary source for the data below on issuance and redemption of currency. Unfortunately, the State Bank’s ledgers and circulation book have not been found. The Iowa City Branch was middle-sized compared to other branches and thus can serve as a useful prototype as an average branch. While this manuscript was nearing completion, an original Journal ledger and share books from the McGregor branch were discovered in the attic of a successor bank. Important information from this source has been added to the article. Additional sources include Iowa City newspapers which published regular consolidated financial statements for each branch. The currency was immediately welcomed by everyone. One newspaper reported “The only objection we have heard to the Iowa State Bank is that their bills are too good to be of common use.” In 1862, state bank notes were held to be on a par with the new federal currency. The round cardboard scrip in Figure 5 was payable “In Iowa or Treasury Notes.” It was issued by Thompson, Whitman & Co. of Clayton, IA, (about 12 miles south of McGregor) a mercantile firm which purchased 35 shares of the McGregor branch. The schedule of currency purchases authorized by the Board is given in Table 1. Purchases totaled about $1,600,000. It is seen that the purchases were in a three to one ratio of low- to $3-10-10-10 sheets. Additional purchases of Type 2 notes were made later, but they were billed directly to the branch banks and evidently did not come before the Board for approval. The Board minutes indicate that the February 1860 purchase of $1-1-2-5 sheets would exhaust the printing plate which had produced about 49,000 sheets. It would be interesting to compare the quality of notes printed early in the plate life to high serial number (≥40,000) notes printed at the end of the plate life. The currency received by the Iowa City Branch from the State Bank is listed in Table 2. In total, they received 5,116 $1-1-2-5 sheets ($46,044) and 1,708 of $3-10-10-10 ($56,364), not including the replacement sheets received in 1861. Type 1 notes out-numbered Type 2 notes by 84%. Iowa City and the other branches received their notes in blocks of $6,000 consisting of 300 low- and 100 high-denomination sheets, thus maintaining the statutory limit on smaller notes. Also demonstrated by the table is that banks could not receive more blocks of currency until their capital had been raised sufficiently. Fig. 4: Type 2 uncut sheets (State Historical Society of Iowa) Table 1: Authorizations for currency purchases Date Amount authorized # of low $ sheets # of hi $ sheets 12/1858 $505,500 25,275 8,425 5/11/1859 $94,500 4,725 1,575 11/17/1859 $200,00 10,000 ≈3,334 2/16/1860 ≈$130,000 ≈8,890‡ ≈1,515 8/14/1861 $669,900 Type 2 33,000 Type 1 11,300 ‡exhausted plate Figure 5: Cardboard Scrip, circa 1862, (catalog Oakes 23) SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 126 Iowa City did not receive any Type 2 notes until August 1861, a year after Dubuque received theirs. Collectors may note that the date on a note does not necessarily correspond to its date of issue. Also, any Iowa City $1-1-2-5 note dated Sept. 1, 1860, is from the exhausted plate and would be interesting to study. Table 2: Currency received by Iowa City branch from the State Bank Date Paid-in capital Currency received $1-1-2-5 branch s/n $1-1-2-5 State Bank s/n $3-10-10-10 branch s/n $3-10-10-10 State Bank s/n Date on notes 12/30/58 $25,000 $12,000 1-600 4201-4800 1-200 1401-1600 1/1/1859 1/11/59 〃 $6,000 601-900 5101-5400 201-300 1701-1800 〃 1/28/59 〃 $6,000 901-1200 6601-6900 301-400 2201-2300 〃 3/2/59 〃 $6,000 1201-1500 10501-10800 401-500 3501-3600 〃 10/1/59 $26,300 $6,000 1501-1800 27301-27600 501-600 9101-9200 10/1/1859 11/10/59 〃 $6,000 1801-2100 29701-30000 601-700 10201-10300 〃 12/10/59 〃 $6,000 2101-2400 36001-36300 701-800 12301-12400 〃 6/4/60* $27,660 $6,000 2401-2700 ** 801-900 ** 〃 9/10/60 $6,000 2701-3000 47693-47992 901-1000 16303-16402 9/1/60 9/20/60 $4,200 3000-3210 48593-48802 1001-1070 16603-16672 〃 10/12/60 $33,105 $2,208 3211-3316 48803-48908 1071-1108 16673-16710 〃 1/1/61 $34,106 $27 3314-3316‡ 50954-50956 〃 8/7/61 $48,360 $24,000 1-1200 Type 2 1-400 Type 2 7/1/61 7/23/62 $48,480 $4,107 1201-1407‡‡ Type 2 401-468‡‡ Type 2 7/1/62 10/25/63 $60,000 $7,893 1408-1800 Type 2 469-600 Type 2 10/1/63 *=estimated, **= data missing, ‡=replacements for defective sheets, ‡‡replacements for burned notes The growth and decline of currency in circulation from all the branches is shown in the accompanying graph along with the total paid-in capital from all the banks. The total circulation peaked at $1,532,739 in April 1864. and declined thereafter as the banks prepared for the transition to the national banking system. It can be seen that the circulation was always less than the legal limit of twice the capital. The drop in circulation in early 1861 was due to concerns about the South’s secession and the start of the Civil War. The decrease in early 1862 was related to the financial turmoil following the suspension of specie payments by the federal government and New England banks. The Merchants Branch in Davenport had an unusual history. Davenport was the second largest town in the state and had a strong economy and well-established private bankers. However, for most of its life the branch’s circulation was lower than that of the other branches. All branches were required to keep on hand specie totaling at least 25% of their circulation. Except for one month at the start of the Civil War, Davenport’s specie always exceeded their circulation. In April 1861 their specie was four times their circulation, $44,000 to $10,000. But the bank maintained its profitability and paid dividends. When specie payments were suspended in early 1862, they started withdrawing their circulation. This trend was encouraged when the First National Bank of Davenport became the first national bank in the nation to open for business in mid-1863. By April 1865 their circulation was down to only $1,335. At that time McGregor had more $13,000 outstanding, and the other branches had $20,000 to $200,000 out. It’s no surprise that Davenport and McGregor are two of the scarcest notes for today's collectors. Currency Redemption and Conversion to National Banks By the summer of 1863 the hand-writing was on the wall for the fate of the State Bank and its branches. Competing bankers in Davenport and Iowa City had organized national banks with more to follow. Over the next few years most of the Iowa branches would convert to national banks. The remaining one or two ended up as part of local national banks possibly by purchase or merger. All remaining State Bank notes in the vaults, used and unused, were to be mutilated and SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 127 burned. The last act of the Board of Directors was to burn $34,460 on Nov. 25, 1865. After that, each branch was an independent corporation that could manage its affairs as it saw fit. They or their successor banks all chose to continue redeeming their notes. The Iowa City Branch ledgers provide one example of the conversion. It maintained normal banking operations through Saturday, April 15, 1865. Bank ledgers showed a normal number of deposits that day. On Monday the bank reopened with the same officers in the same building renamed as the Iowa City National Bank (ICNB) which had been chartered ten days earlier. Except for outstanding circulation, about $320,000 of other bank accounts (mostly cash, certificates, and deposits) were zeroed and moved to new ICNB accounts. The accounts were in the same ledger books as the Iowa City Branch and in some cases on the same page. The ICNB continued to redeem its branch bank notes as they came across its counters, and the outstanding circulation continued to slowly decline. As an example of late redemptions trickling in, during 1871-72 Iowa City recorded separate redemptions of $12, $2, $10, $12, $2, $1, and $1. All the other successor national banks did similarly. So faith in State Bank notes was maintained even after all the branches had closed. In 1868, three years after the system shut down, New York banks were still listing Iowa notes at only a two percent discount. The State Bank stopped publishing regular consolidated financial statements after April 1865; so we have to look at other sources to get data on redemption and outstanding notes. The Iowa City branch data was entered into its ledgers and continued by the ICNB, but data for other branches was found in an unexpected source, the Comptroller of the Currency annual reports on the national banking system. Starting in 1866, the reports listed each national bank’s balance sheet including its state bank notes outstanding as a liability. The only Iowa banks that listed any outstanding notes initially were Council Bluffs, Dubuque, and Mt. Pleasant. Iowa City was not included until the 1868 report because its outstanding was not transferred to the ICNB’s account until late 1867. The other national banks listed no state bank notes outstanding, leaving unclear their status. Final termination: In April 1870 Iowa enacted a law repealing the 1858 act that created the state bank system. The law also required the banks to continue redeeming their notes for another two years. Finally on Jan. 17, 1873, the ICBN zeroed out the $585 of state bank notes still on its books and listed that amount as profit. And so the successful operation of the State Bank of Iowa passed into history. The final amounts outstanding reported by the Comptroller were $1,184 for Council Bluffs in 1868, $1,335 for Mt. Pleasant in 1871, $191 for Dubuque in 1871, and $585 for Iowa City in 1872. The Dubuque branch rather remarkably redeemed 99.93% of their peak circulation while the other three branches had an average redemption rate of 98.4%. To put these redemption rates in perspective, the average redemption rate for the first twelve Iowa national banks that issued only Original Series notes was 99.3% of the number received from the Treasury. So the redemption of State Bank notes was comparable to that from early national banks. The Iowa City branch recorded its burned notes by denomination for 95% of its issued notes. Five-dollar bills had the highest burn rate of 98.6% of the number of its issued notes, perhaps because of the counterfeit $5 problem discussed below. Three dollar and ten-dollar notes were close to that rate with a 98% burn rate, while ones and twos had the lowest redemption rate at 94% and 89%, respectively. If Iowa City’s data had been more complete, these burn rates would have been a little higher. Counterfeit and Raised notes Scam artists were quick to try to take advantage of people’s trust in State Bank notes. By February 1862 counterfeits of $5 Type 1 notes from the Oskaloosa Branch were found in multiple locations across Iowa. Eventually they were reported in locations as distant as Chicago, St; Louis, and Cincinnati. The notes were reasonably well made but with a glaring error. Three a’s in the American Bank Note Company imprint were reversed left to right. This flaw was widely advertised, and there are far more surviving notes of this variety than any other State Bank of Iowa type. Some of the Oskaloosa counterfeits are so well-worn that the reversed a’s may be hard to identify. If so, there are several other differences from genuine notes. These may be found by comparison with higher grade examples of the type that can be found in the online archives of several auction companies. Remember that Type 1 notes from all the branches were printed from the same plate and any can be used for comparison. Some of the other differences from genuine notes include a rougher and darker engraving of Antoine LeClaire, and too many dark horizontal lines in the decoration in the middle of the right edge. On severely worn or dirty notes, perhaps the most visible difference is the highlight in the hair on the left side of LeClaire’s Figure 6. Reversed a’s in Oskaloosa counterfeit. Figure 7. Antoine LeClaire on genuine (L.) and counterfeit (R.) notes SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 128 head. On the genuine pieces, the highlight slopes downward initially and then turns sharply to the rear above the ear. On counterfeits, the highlight continues downward towards 4:00 or 5:00 o’clock. Because the branch name and signatures were hand written on type 1 notes, the counterfeiters’ output was not limited to the Oskaloosa branch. In December 1862 a McGregor newspaper reprinted a story that a Merchants Branch of Davenport bill from the same plate as the Oskaloosa counterfeits had been identified. Nothing more is known about these Davenport counterfeits. Then a few weeks later, the Davenport sheriff announced the arrest of three counterfeiters, a Mr. & Mrs. David Preble and David Boyd (probably aliases for well-known engraver Pete McCartney and his brother-in-law David Boyd). Confiscated were plates, coin dies, “a quantity of excellent counterfeits on the Council Bluffs Branch of the State Bank of Iowa and some in which the name of the branch was not filled out,” and other currency. This was the first newspaper mention of the Council Bluffs $5 Type 1 notes which are also more common today than any legitimate issue. The notes were printed on the same plate as the Oskaloosa fakes, except that the engravers had corrected their error of the reversed a’s. All the other deficiencies of the Oskaloosa notes are present on the Council Bluffs notes. But the forgers made a different, even more obvious error. On all those identified today, the State Bank and Branch Bank serial numbers are identical! Possibly the forgers did not have access to a genuine Council Bluffs Type 1 note and used a Type 2 note instead to copy its signatures. All Type 2 notes have two identical serial numbers, which style the forgers may have unwittingly copied. GRAND HAUL OF COUNTERFEITERS: that was the headline in a lengthy Aug. 11, 1864, New York Times article describing Col. L. C. Baker’s arrest in St. Louis of a large gang of counterfeiters and seizure of large quantities of coin and paper counterfeits and materials. One of the items seized was a $5 plate on the State Bank of Iowa. Undoubtedly, this was the plate that created all the problem Oskaloosa and Council Bluffs notes. Raised Notes: Raised notes appeared in Iowa even before the counterfeits. A number of different examples exist today. Most common are Type 1 $1 notes raised to $5 or $10. The forgers had the most trouble dealing with the alphabetic ONE in the lower left counter. One easy solution was to simply tear off that corner as in Figure 8. If you see a piece with the lower left corner missing, immediately suspect a raised note. Haxby (1988) has an image of a Fort Madison Type 1 $2 note raised to $10. Newspapers also reported the more unusual effort of $2 notes raised to $20. Surviving examples of these are not confirmed. Type 2 notes had more anti-counterfeiting features, including the location and denomination fine-printed repeatedly across the background. Forgers removed this feature by smearing out the background, as illustrated in Figure 9. Census Extensive efforts were made to gather as complete a census as possible. These efforts include contacting organizations ranging from the Smithsonian Institution to local libraries, museums, and historical societies, searching old catalogs and online archives of auction companies and the Newman Numismatic Portal, searching online and Figure 8: Type 1 $1 notes raised to $5 and $10 ($10 courtesy of J.D. Larson) Figure 9: Type 2 $1 note raised to $5, background smeared out. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 129 microfilm historical newspapers, spending many hours reviewing State of Iowa archives in Des Moines and Iowa City, placing ads in appropriate journals, and personally contacting many collectors, dealers, and bankers. Of course no census can ever be complete, but the data below are by far the largest assemblage of these notes ever published. One challenge of the work was the difficulty of establishing the uniqueness of each listing. The low grade of many notes made reading the hand-written location, signers, date, and serial numbers difficult. It was not unusual that the location could only be identified by matching a few letters from a signature to the known signatures of the bankers. When listed, the serial numbers are a best estimate but may contain errors. Another cause of missing data is that some notes were only listed in old sources that did not include much data except perhaps the denomination or location. Every care was taken to avoid duplicating listings. With the cooperation of many individuals, scans or photocopies were obtained for over 90% of the listed notes, which provided positive evidence of each note’s uniqueness. When in doubt, a note was excluded from the census. Issued Notes: Seventy-two issued notes are recorded in the census and are listed individually in Table 3. Each note is listed by town and type similarly to the Burlington $1 273A, which represents a $1 bill with serial number 273 and plate position letter A. An asterisk indicates missing data for the note. Most notes are in a low grade. The grades for just a few notes in VF or better condition are given in the table, but grades for some notes were not able to be determined. Table 3: Census of issued notes by town and type Branch bank Type 1 Type 2 Type not given Total Com- ment Burlington $1 273A, $1 1397B, $1 *A, $1 *B; $2 1449A; $5 3452A, $5 2540A EF, $5 *A 8 C1 Council Bluffs Possibly none issued $1 1223D, $1 2089D 2 Davenport $2 * 1 C2 Des Moines $5 1966A $1 59C, $1 714D, $1 2284C; $2 998B, $5 54 B,$5 2333B 7 Dubuque $3 *A; $10 1547A VF, $10 2967C $1 1D EF 40, $1 1261D, $1 2983D, $1 3586D, $1 5503D, $1 6669C, $2 3315B, $2 4862B, $3 1902B, $5 4638B, $5 5781B $1 2598 15 C3 Fort Madison $1 2682A, $1 4801B, $2 688A, $2 5032 A, $2 * $2 959B 6 C4 Iowa City $1 2582A, $5 1715A, $5 1749A, $10 3750A $1 588 5 Keokuk $1 *B, $2 3041A, $2 4036A, $2 4419A, $10 1695A VF20, $10 *, $10 1882C 7 Lyons City $1 46 B VF, $5 1546A CU $1 2501C, $3 156B 4 Maquoketa SENC McGregor * 1 C5 Mount Pleasant $1 *; $5 3621A $5 611B $10 * 4 C6 Muscatine $1 3552C 1 Oskaloosa $1 1998A, $10 2012B, $10 2012C, $10 2028A, $10 2054C 5 Washington $1 2363A, $1 2416A, $1 *B 3 Unknown $1 *B, $2 *A, $3 *A 3 C7 Total 43 25 4 72 Comments: SENC=surviving example not confirmed, C1 $5 * Knight 10/91 sale LR corner gone, C2= mentioned in Eric P. Newman correspondence, C3=#2598 in Newman correspondence, $5 #5781B ex A. Grinnell collection in Numismatist 4/1960. C4= $2 Type 1 * dated 8//31/1860 in Heritage CSNS auction, catalog 374, lot 15286. C5=not personally confirmed. C6=$1 * Only note back inspected, $10 * mentioned in Newman correspondence. C7=illegible hand-written data. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 130 The Dubuque $10 type 1 note #1547A is interesting. Its State Bank serial no., 26247, is by far the largest listed number for type 1 $3-10-10-10 sheets. Using the totals in Table 1, we see that it must have been one of the last sheets purchased and issued. The note is dated Jan. 1, 1864, later than any other note in the census, and a date when Dubuque reported a large increase in its circulation. The survival rates of the different branches corresponds closely with their circulation outstanding on March 5, 1865, the last date for which such data is available for all branches. The branches with the most surviving notes are Burlington, Des Moines, Dubuque, and Keokuk, which had outstanding circulations between $95,000 and $200.000. Davenport, Maquoketa, and McGregor are the scarcest branches, and they had outstanding of $1,335 $34,000, and $13,000, respectively. Table 4 summarizes the census of surviving notes by type and denomination. Unsurprisingly, type 1 notes outnumber type 2 notes by about 50%. Substantially more type 1 notes than type 2 were issued, although we can’t quantify the proportions. One-dollar notes are the most common, followed by nearly equal numbers of $2s, $5s, & $10s. Three- dollar notes are the scarcest. Because the notes were distributed by the State Bank with three low denomination sheets for every high denomination sheet, the proportions of each denomination issued was 6-3-1-3-3 for $1s, $2s, $3s, $5s, & $10s, respectively. The relative proportions of the surviving notes in Table 4 agree with the issued ratios to within statistical sampling error. In other words, notes survived in proportion to the amount of each that was issued. Even the very scarce $3 notes are scarce, not because they were treated differently from other denominations, but simply because fewer of them were issued. We have seen that the average redemption for the branch banks was similar to that of the twelve Iowa national banks only issuing Original Series notes, despite a much longer time for redemption of the latter. However, the average survival rate for state bank notes was much higher than that for national bank notes, 4.5 notes per branch versus 0.7 per bank. Counterfeits and raised notes: Our census included counterfeits and raised notes, but these were not listed in Table 3.They were difficult to classify because many of them were in extremely low grade. Serial numbers were often illegible or only partly legible. Wear seen on scans or photocopies was used to identify unique notes. Counterfeits were seen only from the Oskaloosa and Council Bluffs branches. Oskaloosa fakes are the most common of all Iowa state bank notes with 33 listed. Thirteen forgeries represent Council Bluffs in the census. The 1999 Smythe Memphis auction included a $10 Type 1 note described as counterfeit that appeared to have no handwriting. Its low-quality photograph makes it difficult to determine its true nature. Fewer raised notes have survived. We have identified nine notes scattered among various combinations of $1 and $2 notes of types 1 and 2 raised to $5 and $10 purporting to be from seven different branches. Evidently the printed forgeries were made on a large scale while independent operators crafted smaller numbers of raised notes. Proofs, Specimens, and Sheets: Only four uncut sheets are known consisting of one each of proofs of $1-1-2-5 and $3-10-10-10 sheets of Type 1 and 2 as illustrated herein. These sheets are in the permanent collection of the State Historical Society of Iowa in Iowa City. The Type 1 sheets are inscribed from the State Bank to the historical society on May 20,1859. Five individual specimen notes are known as illustrated in Oakes (1982). They are not canceled and are stamped “SPECIMEN.” Thirteen individual proofs are reported and are listed in Table 5. It is very possible that additional proofs will surface to fill in denominations missing from the table. Be aware that modern proprietary proofs produced from the original plates may be in the marketplace. Tidbits 1. A few notes including Keokuk type 1 $10 #1695A are punch canceled although all redeemed as well as unissued notes were supposed to be mutilated and then burned. 2. Elihu Baker, State Bank Secretary and Registrar, became a national bank examiner after 1865. 3. The only two notes in the Smithsonian Institution are Oskaloosa counterfeits. Table 4: Totals of surviving notes by type and denomination $1 $2 $3 $5 $10 Unknown Total Type 1 15 8 2 8 10 43 Type 2 14 4 2 5 0 25 Unk.Type 1 1 1 1 4 Total 30 13 4 13 11 1 72 Table 5: Proof notes Branch Denomination Type Unnamed $1 B, $3, $10C Type 1 Dubuque $1, $2, $3, $5, $10E, $10F Type 2 Keokuk $3, $5 Type 2 Muscatine $2, $3 Type 2 SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 131 4. The back of Des Moines type 1 $1 #2284C has an advertising stamp from F. Knauft of St. Paul, Minnesota. 5. The first stockholder of the Iowa City branch was Samuel J. Kirkwood, future Civil War Governor of Iowa, who bought 79 shares. 6. The financial statements of several banks imply that their specie included three-cent silver pieces. Summary With the help of original bank ledgers, I show how the issuance and survival of State Bank of Iowa notes was determined by restrictions on low denomination notes which required three $1-1-2-5 sheets for every $3-10-10-10 sheet. The ledgers also provide an example of how the transition from state bank to national bank was handled. For the first time, the census gives numerical data on the scarcity of notes from each branch. This work was partially supported by the Eric P. Newman Numismatic Education Society. I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Larry Adams, Mary Bennett, Tom Gardner, Scott Hansen, Rick Hickman, Alan Johnson, J.D. Larson, Don Mark, Dean Oakes, Mike Scacci, Charles Scott, and many others. A partial list of sources 1. Preston, Howard H., “Chapter 6” in History of Banking in Iowa, State Historical Society of Iowa, 1922 2. Oakes, Dean G., Iowa Obsolete Notes And Scrip, Society of Paper Money Collectors, 1st ed. 1982 (more text), revised ed. 2015 (color images, updated rarities) 3. Bank Records 1857-1906, Special Collections, State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa City, Box R16 (6 boxes, 54 volumes) 4. FRASER economic history database, St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, https://fraser.stlouisfed.org 5. Newman Numismatic Portal, https://nnp.wustl.edu/ 6. McGregor Branch of the State Bank of Iowa, 1860-61 Journal and sharebooks 7. Auction catalogs and online archives of Heritage Auctions, Lyn Knight Currency, Smythe, and Stacks Bowers 8. Iowa City Republican and Iowa State Reporter, Iowa City newspapers, for financial statements, and many other Iowa and regional papers for general news items, 1858-1873 9. Haxby, James A., Standard Catalog of United States Obsolete Bank Notes 1782-1866, vol.1, Krause Publ., 1988 10. State Bank seal on Report to the Governor from Elihu Baker, Sec., and Chester Weed, Pres. on 8/10-12/1859 Board Meeting, Governor’s Correspondence, Miscellaneous 1857-1909 Banks, State Archives, Box DM, RG043, 051092, S27/05/04, Des Moines 11. “Grand Haul of Counterfeiters,” New York Times, Aug. 11, 1864, page 2 12. Wilde, Bernie, and Davis, Greg, “Census of Obsolete Proofs from the ABNC Archives,” 2010 IPMS talk, online at https://archive.org/details/IPMS10002/AA_StreamingVersion_IPMS10002.mp4 13. Erickson, Erling A., “Money and Banking in a ‘Bankless’ State: Iowa, 1846-1857,” Business History Review, Summer 1969, 43 14. Federal Reserve Committee on Branch, Group, and Chain Banking, “Branch Banking in the United States,” circa 1932, online at https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/branch-banking-united-states-686 15. Bob McCabe, Counterfeiting and Technology, Whitman Publishing, LLC, 2016 SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 132 Wooden Nickels by Clifford F. Thies The expression “don’t take any wooden nickels,” meaning “watch out,” came into the lexicon during the 1920s, or maybe before. Dictionaries aren’t sure. A search of the Library of Congress’ digital newspapers found the expression used as an adage at the turn of the century (implying that the expression “wooden nickel” had an earlier origin): “Don’t take any wooden nickels or bad checks.” Phillipsburg Herald [KS] February 5, 1903, p. 4 “We wouldn’t give a wooden nickel.” True Democrat (Tallahassee FL) June 28, 1907, p. 10 “We wouldn’t give a wooden nickel for all a man knows who thinks he knows it all.” Daily Ardmoreite [Ardmore OK] May 30, 1907, p. 3 “Look close and do not take any wooden nickels when you get your change.” Baxter Springs News [KS] July 16, 1908, p. 8 Of course, before the wooden nickel, there had to be the nickel nickel. During the inflation associated with the Civil War, redemption of U.S. currency in silver and/or gold was suspended, and silver and gold coins disappeared from circulation (except in California where private mints continued to supply gold coins). As the economy was desperate for small change, Congress provided fractional paper currency and, then, base metal coins including three- and five-cent pieces made of a nickel-copper alloy. (The three-cent coin was eventually discontinued.) These coins came to be known as “nickels.” (Previously, silver five-cent pieces had been known as “half dimes.”) Resumption only occurred in 1879 and, until then, silver coins were in short supply. “There is great complaint among the people at the slowness with which silver change is got into circulation.” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 16, 1876, p. 4 “Considering the not large amount issued, the silver change circulates quite as much as could be expected.” [meaning it circulates slowly] Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, May 20, 1876, p. 2 During the time that silver coins were in short supply, merchants and others issued token coins, invariably using base metal. Later in the century, the technology was developed for printing on thin pieces of wood. Hence, “wooden nickels”. To skirt the federal law making it illegal to issue anything intended to serve as a general medium of exchange, these base metal and wooden tokens and paper scrip were often annotated “redeemable in merchandise,” or “not transferable.” “Shield Nickel” of 1863-1883 SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 133 Wooden tokens became popular as novelties and marketing gimmicks. What they lacked in durability, they gained in cheapness when intended for limited use. For example, as tokens useful for discounted admission to a fair. But, the wooden nickels were sometimes passed into circulation as though they were a general medium of exchange. New Kind of Money From the Pittsburgh Dispatch of August 16, 1892, p. 4, we find that in a Mexican town in which copper coins were scarce, an American sold local merchants fractional currency printed on wood. A large amount was put into circulation. But, the merchants refused to redeem the wooden change notes and the state government put an end to the practice. The American who sold the wooden change notes to the Mexican merchants then disappeared into the United States. From such schemes came the warning against wooden nickels. “The snow was falling with dull thuds all around her, and she had no money; only a wooden nickel.” Tacoma Times, January 10, 1913, p. 2 “…the meanest man would be the fellow who would give a blind beggar a wooden nickel.” Topeka State Journal, March 15, 1915, p. 4 With the deranged monetary conditions of the Great Depression, wooden currency made something of a comeback. In Tenino, Washington, when the one bank in town was closed, the local chamber of commerce came up with the idea of printing small denomination currency backed by the assets frozen inside the bank, on thin pieces of wood. The resulting money became a tourist souvenir, as well as a local medium of exchange, and was imitated in several other places. This depression-era wooden scrip appears in the 1984 Standard Catalog of Depression Scrip in the United States by Ralph A. Mitchell and Neil Shafer, among other places. Tenino Wooden Currency, 1933 Wooten's Ice Cream and Soda Parlor, Spartanburg, S.C., circa 1909 https://www.angelfire.com/sc/sctokens/ SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 134 The Mauch Chunk National Bank – Charter #6534 Like many small towns across America who graced national bank notes back in the day, Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania is probably a city most people have never heard of. You wouldn’t even be able to find it on your favorite road map, but not because it’s so small. The town of Mauch (Pronounced Mok) Chunk was renamed after a famous athlete in 1954. In 1902, The 1st National Bank of Mauch Chunk (Charter #437) and The Linderman National Bank (Charter #2852) merged into a new bank known as The Mauch Chunk National Bank. The Mauch Chunk National Bank was chartered December 15, 1902, and opened for business December 31, 1902, under the direction of its president M. S. Kemmerer. Born in Cherry Valley, Pennsylvania, Mahlon Sistie Kemmerer (1843- 1925), was a veteran of the Civil War, enlisting in the Union cause during the dark days of the Rebellion. When the large freshet of 1862 suspended operations in the coal regions of Pennsylvania, Mahlon joined a core of engineers employed by the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, making repairs associated with the properties of the company. This engineering core, which he remained with for 4 years, also surveyed the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad. M. S. Kemmerer, a commoner, got his career jump started when he married Annie Leisenring on December 1, 1868. Annie was the daughter of the Hon. John Leisenring, who was one of Mauch Chunk’s foremost citizens. John Leisenring, a wealthy coal operator, provided Mahlon with connections and financial backing. Mahlon rose through the ranks to become a commissioned coal dealer and developed ownership interests in various coal and iron companies in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wyoming. It was in Wyoming where Patrick J. Quealy, vice-president and general manager of the Kemmerer Coal Company, named a town after M. S. Kemmerer, who was his financial backer. Kemmerer, organized in 1897, is in southwest Wyoming and is the county seat of Lincoln County. It is the town where James Cash Penney opened his very first store in 1902. Before the merger with The Mauch Chunk National Bank, M. S. Kemmerer served as president of The 1st National Bank of Mauch Chunk from 1894-1902. He retired as president in 1924 and passed away the following year in Atlantic City. A close relationship existed between P. J. Quealy and M. S. Kemmerer, that spanned a 30-year period. In 1896, the two gentlemen hatched the plan to form the Wyoming town while strolling through Central Park in New York City. Mr. Quealy even named his son, Mahlon Kemmerer Quealy, after the Pennsylvania Coal Magnate. P. J. Quealy was the founding president of The First National Bank of Kemmerer in 1900. He remained with the bank in that capacity until his death on November 17, 1930. After his passing, John L. Kemmerer, the son of M. S. Kemmerer, became the next president of the Wyoming bank in 1931. A bustling coal and railroad town, Mauch Chunk (Indian derived, meaning “Bear Mountain”), was founded in 1818. At the turn of the twentieth century the town was flourishing, and the future looked bright. However, the Great Depression and less demand for coal hit Mauch Chunk hard. With the economy depressed, the town launched the “Nickel A Week” Industrial Plan in June of 1953, where every resident would contribute 5 cents per week for a period of 5 years. The campaign was designed to induce new industry to the area to create jobs to stem the exodus of their young people. The death of Jim Thorpe in March of 1953 set off a series of events that would impact the future of the small town. Jim Thorpe’s burial was set to take place in April of 1953 near his hometown of Prague, Oklahoma. A memorial was scheduled to be built in his honor, but when the Oklahoma governor wouldn’t authorize the funding, Patsy Thorpe (Thorpe’s 3rd wife), became enraged. On a cool night, with a hearse and highway patrolmen in tow, Mrs. Thorpe ordered the coffin loaded into the hearse during her husband’s ritual feast, the day before his Native American funeral service. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 135 After months of “shopping” the body, while in Philadelphia, Patsy noticed a television program detailing the “Nickel A Week” campaign and the plight of the “Chunkers”. Intrigued, days later she met with civic leaders and in 1954 a deal was struck. The body of Jim Thorpe arrived in Mauch Chunk on February 7, 1954, a place he had never visited while breathing. In June of 1954 the two towns of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk, with a total population of 6000, merged to become Jim Thorpe. The man, Jim Thorpe, was now buried in the place, Jim Thorpe. The borough of Jim Thorpe is in eastern Pennsylvania, 90 miles north of Philadelphia and is the county seat of Carbon County. The residents hoped the name change would give their town a new lease on life, with the possibility of luring the Pro Football Hall of Fame and talk of a new hospital, serving as a living memorial to the legend. While an economic boom did not materialize right away, by the 1980’s the town underwent a resurgence, powered by the tourism industry. The picturesque town of Jim Thorpe, known as the “Gateway to the Poconos”, is frequented by visitors from the populated east coast to enjoy hiking, skiing, biking and is also a popular rafting destination. The Mauch Chunk National Bank issued 585,092 large size national notes, totaling $4,872,400, while 125,193 small size nationals were issued, totaling $967,260. Although, not a scarce Bank, finding notes in uncirculated condition can be quite a difficult proposition. This charter issued $5, $10, and $20 denominations for both large and small size nationals. The $10, type 1 variety note pictured has the signature of President Ira George Ross, who was born in Bethlehem, PA on February 23, 1861. He started working for The 1st National Bank of Mauch Chunk as a teenager in 1880 and promoted to assistant cashier in 1893. He continued serving in that capacity with the Mauch Chunk National Bank after the merger in 1902. In June of 1912, Edgar Twining, the first cashier of The Mauch Chunk National Bank, suffered a stroke in his office and passed away a few days later. Ira Ross was promptly appointed cashier the following month. He was elected president of the bank on January 15, 1925, and held that position upon his death on March 7, 1935, ending a 55-year career with the financial institution. The signature of Cashier R. S. Ruddle (1863-1947), a native of East Mauch Chunk, adorns the $10 note pictured. Richard Sharpe Ruddle’s career began as a clerk with the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company in 1884. Shortly thereafter, he was hired as a bookkeeper for The 1st National Bank of Mauch Chunk. After the merger, he was promoted to assistant cashier on January 13, 1916, and elected director of the bank on January 8, 1924. On January 15, 1925, he was elected cashier, and remained in that position until his retirement on March 30, 1940. An authority on the early history of Mauch Chunk, Mr. Ruddle possessed an extensive collection of photographs of the town. The local newspaper’s documented numerous presentations he gave to the different organizations in the area. This interest might be the result of his grandfather being one of the first settlers to the area. John Ruddle (1794-1865) immigrated from England to Mauch Chunk and began working as an auditor for the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company in 1820. R. S. Ruddle’s obituary appeared in the Mauch Chunk Times-News on December 29, 1947, stating “In his capacity as historian, he was SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 136 instrumental in organizing the Carbon County Historical Society.” In May of 1941 he was elected president of said Society. Mr. Ruddle was also the nephew of Alexander Leisenring, who was president of The 1st National Bank of Mauch Chunk from 1869-1893. After the renaming of the town, The Mauch Chunk National Bank became the Jim Thorpe National Bank on July 1, 1954. In 2013, the bank converted from a national bank to a state-chartered bank and changed their name to the Jim Thorpe Neighborhood Bank. Jim Thorpe, who was born in 1887, grew up in Sac and Fox tribal territory of Oklahoma. He gained notoriety at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden, winning gold medals in both the pentathlon and the decathlon. In presenting Thorpe with his two gold medals, King Gustav V of Sweden remarked, “You sir, are the greatest athlete in the world.” In 1913 it was determined he played semi-professional baseball in 1909 and 1910 and stripped of his medals. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) restored his amateur status in 1982, and the Thorpe family was presented with replica gold medals. To this day, the IOC documents Thorpe as the co-gold medalist with the second-place finishers, and none of his record performances are officially recognized. In 2021, Oklahoma lawmakers introduced legislation urging the IOC to restore Thorpe’s 1912 Olympic records and recognize him as the sole gold medalist. Thorpe competed in track and field and was a 2-time All-American in football at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where he was coached by the legendary Pop Warner. Thorpe came into the 1912 Army game fresh off his Olympic medals and regarded as arguably the best player in college football. The Cadets knew to defeat Carlisle, they needed to stop their celebrated halfback. The powerhouse Army team led 6-0, but Thorpe ran wild in the second half, leading Carlisle to a 27-6 victory. The game featured 9 future generals, including a 22-year-old named Dwight D. Eisenhower, class of 1915. Per the Eisenhower Foundation, the West Point graduates of 1915 would later be known as the “Class the Stars Fell On”, because so many rose to the rank of general in World War II. A top halfback on the east coast, Eisenhower suffered a career ending injury the following week against Tufts. Thorpe, who played Major League Baseball for 6 years and professional football for 12, was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951 and was a charter member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963. In 1950, the Associated Press echoed King Gustav’s sentiments when they ranked him as the “Greatest Athlete” from the first 50 years of the twentieth century, with George Herman Ruth finishing a distant second. He appeared on the Wheaties box in 2001 and was featured on US Postal Service stamps in 1984 and 1998. Thorpe retired from professional sports just as the Great Depression hit. Sadly, he had a difficult time assimilating to work outside of sports, falling into alcoholism, and dying in poverty at the age of 65. According to Sac and Fox beliefs, failing to complete a burial observance has terrible consequences, as the spirit of the dead is earthbound. Thorpe’s family was determined to return his remains back to Oklahoma to finish his Native American funeral. In June of 2010, Jack Thorpe, the son of Jim Thorpe, filed a lawsuit against the town of Jim Thorpe for his father’s remains, under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). Passed by Congress in 1990, NAGPRA gives a tribe the right to demand that museum’s hand over Indian remains and artifacts. After the passing of Jack Thorpe in 2011, two of his surviving brothers and the Sac and Fox tribe of Oklahoma joined the suit. In 2013, a U. S. District judge ruled in favor of the sons, saying the town itself amounted to a museum under NAGPRA. The city decided to appeal, and on October 23, 2014, the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the 2013 ruling in favor of the Thorpeians. The sons filed an appeal, but in 2015 the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case. It appears the town of Jim Thorpe has won the Olympic tug-of-war for the bones of Jim Thorpe. While his body lays peacefully in a mausoleum on the outskirts of town, his spirit wanders the earth in sorrow. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 137 U N C O U P L E D : PAPER MONEY’S ODD COUPLE Joseph E. Boling Fred Schwan Pacific War short snorters Fred told me he was working on WWII numismatics of Hawaii this month (all except what we first think of from Hawaii—the overprinted brown- seal notes), and I should see what I can do on Hawaii to parallel him. As you know, when I join him it is to show bad paper that is related to his good paper. I told him I have no fakes related to Hawaii. But I do have some interesting short snorters of the Pacific War, so here goes. The first one is on a 1935A Hawaii note, well decorated mostly in ink that did not run badly as the note was exposed to the rigors of handling (figures 1 and 2). Two signatures on the back are nice and bold (and did soak through to the face), but are too generic to be useful. So let’s stick to the face. See Boling page 143 More HAWAII I love HAWAII notes. Heck, I love typing HAWAII. So, you can imagine that I loved the cover story in the January/February Paper Money by Lee Lofthus about HAWAII notes (Lee used Hawaii). That is true, but is a great understatement. Lee’s article is special in many ways, some of which are a bit surprising. For example, his list of sources includes 23 diverse and valuable references! For me that was a wonderful bonus. Many of the sources were unknown to me, and it is great to have such an inclusive list all in one place. This list is going to keep me busy. I have told you before that deciding on the subject for a column is usually the most difficult part of writing it. Lee’s article inspired me report on Hawaii. I more or less completed my collection of HAWAII notes some forty years ago. Since then I have collected World War II Hawaii other than the notes. I have little, if anything, to offer about HAWAII notes, but I do have a lot to share with you about those other numismatic items of Hawaii. I think (hope) some of these will surprise and, perhaps, please you. (please see illustrations top of the next page.) Defense and war bonds constitute the broadest category of items. More defense and war bonds were sold per capita in Hawaii than any other territory or any state! That is not surprising when you recall that Hawaii was the target of the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. The really good news is that many of the bonds sold had commemorative rubber stamp markings. Of course these bonds are greatly prized by collectors. Throughout the remainder of the war, great efforts were made to sell bonds on “Pearl Harbor Day.” These efforts were most intense in Hawaii, but they were made on the mainland and even among military personnel around the world. Now I and at least a few other collectors seek to build a collection of Pearl Harbor Day bonds 1942-1945. Figure 1 above & Figure 2 below SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 138 To me, the most interesting thing in Lee’s article is the introduction of Thomas Green to numismatics. Thomas H. Green was a World War I veteran. At the time of the Japanese attack he was the judge advocate general corps officer of the Hawaii territorial military headquarters. Green and his activities are described throughout Lee’s article. Green wrote a book about his experiences during the war, Martial Law in Hawaii December 7, 1941- April 4, 1943. The book was never published but the manuscript resides in the Library of Congress. Apparently, Lee was able to access this document. I have not been able to figure out how to do that (yet). I did not know about his book before, but I did know about Green. Many years ago, I purchased some autographed HAWAII notes that had belonged to General Green. One of the notes was accompanied by a typewritten letter describing the circumstances of Green taking the $20 note from circulation and very kindly included the serial number of the note! He wrote the same information on the back of the note! I had a wonderful email exchange with Lee about this. He sent me the image above of then Lieutenant Colonel Green and General Delos C. Emmons, and I sent him images of the autographed notes and the letter. We were both excited! Lieutenant Colonel Green stands with General Emmons, Hawaii military governor. Photo courtesy Densho.org and Lee Lofthus. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 139 You can find Green’s signature on Territory of Hawaii gasoline coupons. These coupons are interesting and exist in many varieties. They come in (at least) two denominations with multiple series(?) letters in the background. Quite unexpectedly, Green’s signature appears in three different versions—three different military ranks: lieutenant colonel, colonel, and brigadier general! (After the war Green retired as a major general.) SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 140 One of the missions of the Secret Service is public education. As part of this mission the service published pamphlets titled Know Your Money. I have a collection of these publications from the war years. The 1943 issue announces, describes, and illustrates HAWAII notes. If this is not the earliest general notification on the mainland, it is nearly so. Securities? Collectors are very familiar with HAWAII notes and in general with the restricted circulation of the notes. The fundamental reason for the creation and use of HAWAII notes was so that they could be repudiated if they fell into enemy hands. Authorities led by Green were similarly concerned about protecting “securities.” Occasionally, the situation with securities is briefly mentioned in discussions about HAWAII notes, but details are never given. Lee includes one important statement on this subject. He quotes the Treasury revocation of currency restrictions: “unperforated securities and ordinary United States currency may be marketed and circulated in Hawaii” (October 21, 1944). From this statement we can see that Hawaiians were in fact required to turn in their securities to be marked by perforation. The securities were perforated with an “H.” The matter of marking securities is interesting. Certainly, Green would have reason to worry about government bearer bonds, but what of registered securities? I have never seen any information discussing this point. It does not seem to me that registered securities needed any additional protection, but we now know that stock certificates were indeed perforated. We know this because collector friend Jim Aitken has found perforated stock certificates in Hawaii! Possibly, Green was worried that owners could be pressured to endorse certificates that might then be redeemed. It is also possible that submission of registered certificates was not required, but they were perforated if submitted. If the authorities felt it necessary to mark registered securities, it seems to me that war bonds would have required the perforation. It would have been much easier to handle war bonds than stock certificates that had been issued. The war bonds could have been perforated before issuing. Indeed, the perforation could have been a feature encouraging bond sales similarly to the rubber stamps shown earlier. Certainly, we have not seen any war bonds so marked, but they could exist. Club chits were commonly used—around the globe—at a wide range of clubs operated by many different agencies during World War II. Many different chits were issued in Hawaii. I have not worked very hard on my chit collection so I do not have a lot to share with you on the subject except to show you a representative group. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 141 We have discussed prisoner of war chits in the past. They are the ultimate type of chit. Only one Hawaiian camp is known, Central Pacific Base Command, Army Port and Service Command Prisoner of War Camp. For that camp only one partial booklet is known (serial number 5381B). It is important to note that the camp is not indicated on the chit so it is important to record this serial number. You might find one of these chits someday! (images courtesy of Dave Frank) The final category that I can think of to mention is one that we have also covered in the past—checks. I have only seen a few Hawaii checks that were dated during the war, but the illustrated example gives a clue to the possibilities. It is a check on a branch of the Bank of Hawaii. How many branches were there? A collection of even several of the branch checks would be very interesting. I suspect that there are some check collectors out there who might be able to help us (especially me) in this area with information (or checks!). There certainly must be some other things that have eluded my attention. I would love to hear from you on the subject of World War II Hawaiian numismatics (one below and one at end of article). (fredschwan@yahoo.com) Pearl Harbor Day handbill promoting bond sale. Check on Bank of Hawaii dated during the war. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 142 Boling continued; Flanking George’s portrait are two signatures on the left and one on the right that I have been able to trace (figure 3). Faintly above the bold Mary Neal is Irene Stone—you may barely be able to see it in the photo. Then there is Miss Neal, and on the other side of George, Mary Anne Stallings. These three women were 2/Lt flight nurses, assigned to two medical aerial evacuation squadrons. Stallings was assigned to the 809th MAES and Stone and Neal to the 812th. Both squadrons were based at Hickam Field, Hawaii, and flew wounded and gravely ill servicemen from their forward bases back to Hawaii, and if necessary, to California for treatment. Lt. Neal stayed in the reserve after the war and retired as a major. As an example, the 809th squadron had 26 nurses, six doctors, five C-54 cargo planes with ten crews, and scores of medical technicians and logistics operators. All but the nurses were male. The aircraft were modified to accept patients on litters. The squadron was organized into four flights and they operated throughout the theater. Both squadrons were assigned to 7th Air Force, the theater-level Army Air Corps organization until late in the war when the 8th Air Force was added. The 809th, the first MAES assigned to the Pacific, arrived in theater in November 1943 and the 812th joined them a couple of months later. In the rest of the world (Europe, the China-Burma-India theater, and North Africa) there were about a dozen more of these squadrons, but two were deemed able to serve the demand of the Pacific theater. Aerial evacuation of wounded and sick troops had a hard time “getting respect,” but once they were trained (at Bowman Field, Louisville, Kentucky) and operating, nobody could imagine going back to sea evacuation. Because the C-54s carried patients in only one direction, they were loaded with critical materiel for the outbound trip, so they were not adorned with red crosses (save for one plane in India). But in the Pacific no planes were lost, and no patient died during evacuation—the nurses and techs on each flight delivered them for advanced care and flew back for another load. There are other signatures that are legible on this snorter, but I have not succeeded in tracing any of them. But on the right end of the face (figure 4) is other interesting information. I have not determined what the beginning of the line says after “1st,” but at the other end it says “878th Sq - Saipan.” That’s the 878th Bombardment Squadron (very heavy). “Very heavy” means B-29s. This was one of Gen. Lemay’s instruments for pummeling Japan’s industrial and urban sectors. I assume that some of the other signatures are related to that unit, which arrived on Saipan in September 1944, but I have not yet searched for a manning roster. The nurses are all listed (and searchable) at http://legendsofflightnurses.org/FlightNurses/Index.asp, a marvelous page for identifying some of the female signers that we find on short snorters, from all theaters. Moving to my second piece, it’s the second generation of Hawaii notes—issued after mid-1944 when it became obvious that Japan was not going to overrun Hawaii and capture large amounts of US currency. The ban on ordinary blue-seal notes was lifted, and new arrivals received them (figures 5 & 6). Fig. 3 Fig. 5 above and 6 below. Fig. 4 SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 143 There are four (so far) traceable signatures on this note. This time we start at the right center of the back, where three of them appear sideways. The top one, in a very slanted but uniform hand, is Claude Thornton. He was a pianist, arranger, composer, and band leader who was knocking down big bucks as a civilian, but in 1942, at age 33 or 34, he enlisted in the Navy and played throughout the Pacific with Jackie Cooper, Dennis Day, and others, entertaining troops. He was discharged in 1946 and inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1984. Two signatures below his we find Marjorie E.Von Stein, who was a Navy nurse stationed at Pearl Harbor when we were jerked into the war. In 1945 she was a lieutenant, and her obituary shows her as a commander. Between Thornton’s and Von Stein’s signatures is one that really surprised me—Dickey Meyer Chapelle (born in 1918 as Georgette Louise Meyer). I had not known that she saw service in WWII. She was a renowned photo-journalist, who went ashore on Iwo Jima (against orders) and also covered Okinawa. She died on 4 November 1965 on a Marine patrol in Vietnam, a casualty of a booby trap (one that she did not activate). A French photo-journalist on the same patrol, Henri Huet, photographed her receiving last rites. He was also lost to enemy fire later in the Vietnam war, when a helicopter carrying him was shot down. Combat journalism is hazardous duty. Which brings us to the fourth signature on this note. Just over the word ONE in the center of the back is the fancy signature of Ernie Pyle (figure 8). Pyle was killed at the end of the Okinawa campaign on one of the adjacent islands, Ie Jima, on 18 April 1945. He was far the oldest of the signers we have covered in this column, born in 1900, the close of the 19th century. It was for this signature that I bought the note—I had no idea who else was on it, and I did not study it to death. I happily paid the $35 that was asked and walked away (the show was closing anyway, and this stop was my last one at the show). Finding Dickey Chapelle’s signature later was a stunner. And I am sure that when I have the time to really dig, there will be other satisfying finds on these two notes. Fig. 8 Restaurant menu requiring payment in HAWAII dollars. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 144 The Obsolete Corner The Commercial & Agricultural Bank of Texas by Robert Gill As we are now into March of this new year, I hope the weather is becoming nice for you where you are. Here in Southern Oklahoma, overall, it has been a very mild winter. I guess that is just fuel to add to the fire of those believing the world's climate is getting warmer. I guess time will tell on that. Hopefully this will be a good year for me in adding to my Obsolete sheet collection. There has been some really nice "new" material to hit the market in the last couple of years. I hope that trend continues to be true. And now let's look at the sheet that I've chosen to share with you in this issue of Paper Money. Let's go to the "Lone Star" State of Texas and look at The Commercial & Agricultural Bank of Texas. Because of stringent laws there during Obsolete times bank notes printed in that state were virtually non-existent. So now, let's look at the short-lived history of this financial institution. The path that Texas took in becoming a state of our great country was completely different from what other states took. It was a nation of its own before joining the United States as the twenty- eighth state on December 29th, 1845. Spain had been the ruler of this part of the world, including what would become Texas, from the early 1500s until Mexico was able to gain freedom in 1821. The Republic of Mexico was the sole governing body of the land of Texas from that date until 1835, the year that the Republic of Texas was able to gain independence from Mexico by means of a revolution. The Commercial and Agricultural Bank of Texas was chartered by the Mexican state of Coahuila and Texas on April 30th, 1835. At this time, Texas was still a province of Mexico. The authorized capital was $1,000,000, divided into ten thousand shares. Well known Texas entrepreneur Samuel May Williams was the recipient of the charter. Early on notes had been authorized to be printed in anticipation of the Bank's opening. On December 14th, 1837, after Texas became independent, the issuance or circulation of promissory notes was prohibited by the Congress of the Republic. But thru special authorization the Bank was granted authorization to issue notes in an amount not to exceed $30,000. But immediately after that an act followed with the statement that "all laws granting to any individual, individuals or corporations the authority to issue either bills or promissory notes to pass or circulate as money, are hereby repealed." This resulted in the Bank being deprived of circulating notes. A short time later the charter lapsed. Because of some notes being printed in anticipation of the Bank's opening, a few remainders have survived as a testament of its existence. The Commercial & Agricultural Bank of Texas was the only bank authorized in Texas prior to the organization of National Banks in 1865. So there's the history behind this short-lived enterprise. It' amazing how far our nation's second-largest state has come from its early beginnings. As I always do, I invite any comments to my personal email address robertdalegill@gmail.com or my cell phone (580) 221-0898. Until next time, HAPPY COLLECTING. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 146 SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 147 The front of the Type-39 Treasury note endorsed by Edward C. Wharton, Quartermaster. image: Randall Smith Maj. Edward C. Wharton Quartermaster, District of Texas War brings out the best and the worst in men. The South had its share of scoundrels like Maj. Peirce, the subject of a previous Quartermaster Column, but it also had honest men who put aside their self interest to work for the common good of the South. Although the government of the Confederacy was founded on the preservation of slavery to support its economy, we can find many examples of admirable civil servants and military officers who could serve as role models for our time.1 A stellar example was Major Edward C. Wharton. The National Archives contain one hundred and seventy-one documents for E. C. Wharton. All of Wharton’s military career was spent in Texas, mostly in Houston, but at times in Galveston and many other economically important locations in Texas. He reported to various commands, the last of which was the command of Maj. Gen’l John Bankhead Magruder. A Wikipedia article on Magruder gives some context for Wharton’s history: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Magruder. The illustrated Treasury note was endorsed in July of 1863 when Wharton was assigned to Houston. The endorsement reads: “Issued July 1st 1863 E. C. Wharton Maj & Q M CSA” Wharton’s endorsement can be found on Confederate Treasury notes with some perseverance (R11-). He added the place name of Houston on one, very rare and very heavily circulated example. It was The Quartermaster Column No. 23 by Michael McNeil The endorsement of E. C. Wharton, Maj. & QM, CSA. image: Randall Smith SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 148 discovered by Dr. Enrico Aidala, an author of articles familiar to the readers of Paper Money. 1861 Wharton was first appointed by Gen’l Paul O. Hebert on October 2nd as an Agent of the Military Department of Texas “to collect information in regard to the practicability of having Commissary and Quarter Master Supplies furnished in the shortest time at such points in the interior of the State as are the most available for distributing depots. His traveling expenses will be paid by the Department...” Wharton wrote Gen’l Hebert with detailed descriptions of the availability and prices of various commodities like flour, corn, nails, lumber, bacon sides, pork, hay, sugar, and salt, the latter being unavailable. Wharton recommended chartering a schooner to run the blockade for salt (it was the primary means of preservation of meat). Many of Wharton’s letters from this time are found in his National Archives file, all of them with detailed information, even drawings of the layouts of a camp. Wharton was hard-working, detail-oriented, and self- effacing, once making the comment, “I know but little of this kind of thing....” In short order on October 15th Wharton accepted a commission as Capt. & Assistant Quarter Master & Assistant Commissary of Subsistence. This is one of the very few instances in which an officer held both of these positions at the same time. This would later change with the Conscription Act when state militias were placed under central control in Richmond. Wharton obtained a bond of $20,000.00 in Galveston and signed an oath to the Confederate States on October 23rd. 1862 Altruism is the opposite of self- interest, and Wharton showed clear evidence of altruistic behavior. With the Union blockade proving porous to Confederate blockade runners, the Union commander of the USS Santee demanded the surrender of Galveston on May 17th. Gen’l Hebert, as “the Confederate military commander for the District of Texas, ordered the evacuation of civilians, livestock, supplies, and cannon, realizing that the defenses were not prepared to repel a sustained attack.”2 Wharton took the initiative on May 26th to ask Capt. Geo. R. Wilson: Will you be kind enough to have an order issued authorizing Capt. E. C. Wharton A. C. S. at this Depot, to use discressionary (sic) powers in regard to the issues to the poor families now in our City fugitives from the beleagured (sic) City of Galveston. 1863 It is common practice in wartime for governments to fix the cost of materials. Wharton managed the manufacture of clothing for the military, and the fixed cost of that clothing was lower than the actual cost to produce it. Wharton was part of an effort in the Texas Quartermaster Department to make sure that the soldier was not burdened with the difference. In a letter of January 20th, a copy of which Wharton signed in acknowledgement, Maj. J. F. Minter, Chief Quarter Master, District of Texas, issued his decision that “...it is not contemplated that the soldier shall pay the difference between the cost of the clothing to the Gov’t and the prices established by the War Department.” On May 30th Maj. Gen’l Magruder issued General Order No. 76 and appointed Wharton to the rank of Major with continued assignment at his post in Houston. The promotion was subject to approval by the President. Wharton endorsed Treasury notes with the rank of Major during this time, but he quickly reverted to using the rank of Captain as his promotion languished in Richmond. He arrived in Columbia, Texas, on December 14th and reported to Gen’l Luckett. He then established a principal depot at Millican, Texas, with most of the type of shops he managed, and later “...brought down clothing for Hobby’s Regt for Negroes....” He signed his report as a Captain. Issues with the clothing supplied to slaves apparently resulted in General Order No. 60, dated December 22nd, which stated in part: All officers & other persons to whom clothing is issued to Negroes, under their control, are directed to return the value of the same to the Clothing Bureau officers, whenever settlements are made, with the owners of the Negroes. In other words, the Army was paying owners of Negro slaves both for the work performed and clothes supplied by the military to the slaves; and they required the owners of those slaves to pay the military for the slaves’ clothing. It is not too difficult to read between these lines to see that the slave owners had to be forced into supplying appropriate and sufficient clothing to their slaves. Having never received his formal commission, Wharton started the ball rolling in Richmond with an eight-page letter of September SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 149 15th. The paper trail of comments on the cover of his letter illustrate the complexity of the approval of commissions and the problems faced by the central government in Richmond in dealing with the Trans- Mississippi Department from such a far remove. The A. & I. G. Office wrote: [Wharton] Claims to have been nominated AQM & ACS by Gen’l Hebert Oct 8, 1861, and confirmed but has never recd his commission.... Jno. Withers, A. A. General, continued on November 2nd: Understand that tho recognized by the Q. M. Dept he is not known as an offr in the Commissary Dept; wishes the matter investigated, respectfully referred to the Q. M. General, C.S.A. A. R. Lawton, QM General, wrote on November 27th: Respectfully returned to the Secretary of War. The case seems most meritorious and I recommend that this officer (E. C. Wharton) be commissioned from October 8th, 1861, the date on which he entered upon the discharge of the duties on which he has since been continuously engaged. On December 1st, James A. Seddon, Secretary of War, initialed his approval: Appoint as recommended by Q M G to date from 3rd May last (as far as I feel privileged to go). 1864 President Davis felt it in his self interest to review the commissions and promotions of every officer in the military, never entrusting or delegating this authority to his Secretary of War, the Quartermaster General, the Commissary General, or the Adjutant General, and added his personal approval on January 27th, 1864, for Wharton’s formal commission as Capt. & AQM. For the two previous years Wharton apparently performed duties on a larger scale than many quartermasters with the rank of Major. Wharton’s responsibilites were immense and involved manufacturing far beyond the confines on Houston, which included “...supervising the Shops, Foundry, Factory, and other manufacturing establishments connected with this Depot, and located, some here, some in the country, I had also to direct the working of the San Antonio, Austin, & Tyler Depots. ...I had no experienced Quarter Master to assist me at this important depot.” This took a toll, and Maj. Gen’l Magruder published a printed Special Order, No. 18, at Houston, Texas, on January 18th: At his own request, Capt. E. C. Wharton, A. Q. M., Chief of Bureau of Clothing and Equipage, is hereby relieved from duty for six months, in order that he may settle his past business and accounts. Capt. Wharton will turn over the public property in his hands to Capt. E. W. Taylor, who is announced as Chief of the Bureau of Clothing and Equipage. Wharton wrote a letter of February 29th to Brig. Gen’l Slaughter, Chief of Staff, Military District of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, stating that “...it had been necessary for me to go over all my business records since September last, in order to obtain accurate data; hence the delay....” Wharton accounted the activities under his direction in astonishing detail in a letter of 31 pages on legal-size paper. He closed his letter by saying that: I endeavored to meet the various and incessant calls on me for Clothing & Equipage as fairly as possible. If I have failed in any point, I trust the difficulties under which I have labored, may be an effectual plea in my defence. Wharton’s commitment to his government is illustrated in a publication discovered by Dave Schnorr, a dedicated member of the Trainmen. Here is Wharton’s appeal of November 19th, 1862, in the Galveston Weekly News: While our generous men and noble hearted women are exerting themselves again to supply from their scanty store, clothing to the heroes who so admirably sustain, out of the State, the honor and renown of Texas, let them not forget that there are those, nearer their homes, who equally need their welcome and timely contributions. True, these soldiers have not been baptised, as their gallant brethren abroad, in the terrible baptism of fire and blood, but they are embattled specially to defend the firesides of Texas, mothers, wives and daughters; and that sacred duty entitles them to at least some portion of the aid and sympathy that the women of our land have so freely extended to our brave men SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 150 elsewhere. Our supplies of clothing and clothing material are limited. Our resources for others, in time, are scant. Even with the means and the time, there are many necessary articles that we must look to the people to make and gather up, from the raw material in their hands. We need these now. Winter is fast approaching. Already our home defenders have suffered from its premonitory severities, and are ill prepared to meet the piercing norther and the cold, drenching rain. They have not murmured, nor do they falter in their duty ― the more powerful reason that those they defend should promptly aid in shielding them from the keen and merciless blast. I appeal to the people of this District ― and I appeal specially to its women ― to assist us in this emergency. Send upper and under clothing, shoes, socks, comforts, blankets, overcoats or material of some kind, to make them. Articles designed for any particular regiment, battalion, or company, if carefully put up and properly addressed, will be sent to their destination. What cannot be given will be paid for cheerfully. And let me entreat them not to delay in this good work, else we shall be left, as we now are, to the tender mercies of the hordes of extortioners, who swarm in our land; who besiege us from sun-rise to sun- set, and whose dreams are but of their unholy gains. Nothing restrains these cormorants and vultures in human form; nor patriotism, nor conscience, nor the 8th commandment ― nay, not even that nightmare of Quarter Masters and horror of editors, the Army Regulations! which, in prohibiting, in the strictest terms, speculation, direct or indirect, in the public funds and property, by officers in charge thereof, did not contemplate, apparently, the possibility of citizens of this Confederacy shamelessly plundering the Treasury, unrelentingly robbing the soldier, and treacherously sucking the lifeblood of a nation struggling for its existence and liberties. Leave not your soldiers in the grasp of these worse than traitors!” (italics are my emphasis) E. C. Wharton, Captain and A.Q.M. C.S.A. Other quartermasters and commissaries encountered and reported the problem of self- interested civilians posing as government agents and speculating in raw materials for their self-enrichment, much to the detriment of the military and the civilian populace. The lack of will in Richmond and the state governments to regulate this behavior worked very much to the disadvantage of the Confederate cause. Wharton, were he alive today, would clearly recognize that Americans continue to worship individual freedom and lack the will to regulate self- interested behavior destructive to the common good. 1865 Wharton appeared on returns of commissioned officers on duty at Houston, Texas, as late as March, 1865. He was surrendered by Gen’l E. Kirby Smith and paroled at Houston on June 22nd. Edward C. Wharton worked for the common good of Texas and the Confederacy, and accepted his immense responsibilities with the pay of a Captain. We could use more like him today. ◘ Carpe diem Notes and References: 1. Charles B. Dew. Apostles of Disunion, University of Virginia Press, 2001 and 2016 (updated with additional commentary). If you have ever doubted that the preservation of slavery was the primary cause of secession, this scholarly book goes to the original sources which pleaded the cause of secession. These were the Southern Secession Commissioners who functioned as ambassadors pleading their reasoning for secession in speeches to southern state legislatures in late 1860 and early 1861. These speeches were printed in southern newspapers and provide a public record. The preservation of slavery as the economic engine of the South was their primary reason for secession and it was the proximate cause of the Civil War. Dr. Harari, in his book Sapiens, has shown that slavery is a direct consequence of capitalism and its need for cheap labor. Never underestimate the power of capitalism; we deal with its effects today much in the same way it was a force in 1860. 2. David Matheson. Galveston in the Civil War, easttexashistory.org/items/show/160, accessed on 8 December 2021. 3. Michael McNeil. Confederate Quartermasters, Commissaries, and Agents, published by Pierre Fricke, Sudbury, MA, 2016. More research on Edward C. Wharton can be found on pages 732-738. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 151 by Robert Calderman   “Oops, I did it again!” “Did I do that?” exclaimed Jaleel White’s character Urkel on just about every episode of the show Family Matters back in the 90’s. Error notes comprise one of the most unique and intriguing areas in all of paper money to collect. Not only do the individual serial numbers on the notes make them unique, each error, with few exceptions, are exceedingly different to the point of nearly being an individual finger print! Errors typically fall into one of three categories: Minor, Moderate, and Major. As in the land of the small round metal discs, the more dramatic a paper money error, the more coveted and desirable they become. Many paper money errors are very affordable and can frequently be found at coin shows and online for under $200. These lower priced offerings fall into the minor error category and include: Gutter Folds, Offset Ink Transfers, Ink Smears, Butterfly Cutting Errors, Misalignment Errors, Misaligned Overprints, Obstructed Printing Errors, Insufficient Ink Errors, and Faulty Alignment or Miscut Errors. Moderate errors step it up a notch in a much more dramatic fashion and trade subtle printing mistakes for significant and more blatantly obvious production snafus. Moderate errors will typically fall into a slightly higher price tier ranging from around $200 to $1000 and beyond. This popular group includes a number of exciting errors not limited to: Printed Fold Errors, Inverted Back Errors, Inverted Third Printings, Blank Back Errors, Missing Second Printing Errors, Inverted Star Errors, and Mismatched Serial Numbers. The final group of errors is so amazing that it’s hard for even seasoned collectors to comprehend what they are and how they were made in the first place. By far the most confusing aspect in the major error category is how on earth these notes made it out of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in the first place? Major errors often fall into the $3,000 to $10,000 range and can even climb as high as the $30,000 to $50,000 level. Major errors include: Multiple Impression Printing Errors, Double Denomination Errors, Retained Obstruction Errors, Dramatic Star Errors, Large Size Errors, etc. The major error category is hard to specify by name since the only qualification is to simply have a note that is so dramatically wrong that at first glance, seasoned collectors, dealers, and novices alike all have bug eyes, their minds blown, and are left rather speechless! The note we have featured here clearly falls into the major error category. This note grades PMG AU58EPQ and is holdered as a Paper Jam Error. Looking SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 152 at the reverse image you can clearly see a vertical center fold while the rest of the note looks as fresh as the day it was made. Think of your home ink jet printer eating a piece of paper, waffling it into an accordion wad of curled up disaster! Then after a few choice words that your mother would not be very proud of, you somewhat calmly decide if you should spend the next 10 to 90 minutes trying to retrieve the crumpled mess or just go and buy a new printer, logically giving up and taking the rest of the day off. Essentially this is exactly what we have here. A note that has an error that includes a gnarly first printing with a huge area of blank space on the back, and a printed fold, a printed tear, and under close inspection the front actually includes visible portions of all three printing steps. Some of the diagonal folds are so thick that the note actually feels thick and lumpy in the PMG slab! Notes that fall into the major error category that are not cookie cutter clones with ample sales comps are challenging to value. There’s not a way to look up a canned Friedberg catalog number, Greensheet column, or online subscription database value. This often scares folks away from a category that can be the most rewarding, exciting, and potentially profitable area in the paper money arena. How did a note like this get out? Was the center fold a result of an unscrupulous employee pocketing a piece of would-be printer scrap? Was it an upper management decision to gift this note to a retiring executive? A trophy memento rewarded to deserving soul with a dedicated spotless career of Government service? I highly doubt it, but who really knows! Can you imagine being a bank teller opening a new back of bills to put into your cash drawer and finding a weird lump of random… wait is this actually a dollar? However this note made it out the door and into public hands is nothing short of a miracle. For a lucky collector it can now become a prized paper money trophy, a one-of-a-kind treasure without equal. Determining a potential value estimate is very challenging for a note with so much eye appeal. A range of $3,000 to $5,000 seems reasonable in this case, and there is no argument that this fabulous paper jam error is an awesome piece of numismatics! Do you have a great Cherry Pick story that you’d like to share? Your note might be featured here in a future article and you can remain anonymous if desired! Email scans of your note with a brief description of what you paid and where it was found to: gacoins@earthlink.net. Recommended Reading:  United States Paper Money Errors: A Comprehensive Catalog and Price Guide, 4th Edition. SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 153 A Catalog of Woes Basic to any collecting hobby is having a catalog of the things we collect. Catalogs of those collectibles (coins, banknotes, stamps, etc.) define the contours of any hobby. Of course, catalogs do much more than just tell you what to collect. They may also provide all sorts of information about rarity, price, and historical background. Nonetheless, the fundamental importance of a collector’s catalog lies in the classification system it imposes on a hobby. How would a newcomer to a hobby even know where to begin if there wasn’t a resource that told them what’s out there to collect, and how one collectible relates to another? The current situation of world currency collecting illustrates what happens when the traditional system of classification breaks down. As many know, the most commonly used cataloging system for world banknotes was that of Albert Pick. Pick’s numbering protocol was continued by the Krause catalogs that defined the hobby for decades. After the bankruptcy of F+W Media in 2019, the Krause imprint was sold to Penguin, which has sat on the property and has shown no interest in reviving it. No edition of the SCWPM has been issued since 2019, at least for modern issues, and the volumes for General and Specialized issues are even more out of date. This may be inconvenient, but why care? The problem is that, as currency issues flood the world annually, Pick numbers are no longer being assigned on a routine basis. An accumulating volume of collectible currency is no longer being tagged with the corresponding Pick designation. In other fields where cataloging matters, a single governing body assumes this task. For example, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has the responsibility of designating all newly discovered objects in space (e.g. “Borg Cube 5a”, “Imperial Death Star 6b”). Since the demise of the Pick/Krause catalog, no similar authority does the same thing for paper money collectors. An alternative has recently emerged in the form of The Banknote Book (TBB), an online catalog started by Owen Linzmayer about a decade ago and recently acquired by CDN Publishing’s Greysheet, a purveyor of numismatic price data. Linzmayer was motivated by the flaws he saw in the Krause catalogs. I do not know whether TBB numbers are better than the Pick system; certainly the online format makes possible color illustrations that are far superior to the black-and-white images in the print Krause catalog. I am told TBB’s text descriptions of banknotes are also better. If the Pick system is now obsolete, then it might be a simple matter of retaining Pick numbers for all the old currency issues up to a certain point, and then adopting TBB numbers for newer issues. Indeed, where relevant, TBB has used its number and the known Pick number to designate a given banknote. But other users of catalog numbers, notably the PMG grading service, has been designating holdered notes as “Pick Unlisted”. Some people have even ventured to invent new Pick numbers! This unsettled situation has led to some discontent among collectors of world banknotes. There seems to be some fear that abandoning the Pick system will somehow affect the value of collections that use it. In addition, the hostile reception to Greysheet’s TBB comes from the different, and more digitally-focused, business model that it represents. Rather than selling a printed catalog, or even downloadable chapters, Greysheet has implemented a subscription model that grants users monthly or yearly access to its catalog. My hunch is that, apart from the inconvenience of a new numbering system, it’s the new subscription model that grinds people’s gears. Offering a digital subscription does allow for periodic updates of prices and the correction of catalog errors, both sore points with users of the Krause products. On the other hand, users no longer own a physical copy of the catalog. As with other digital products like Microsoft Office, consumers purchase access to the product, and not the product itself. In the old word, an outfit like Penguin sold books. In the new world, Greysheet sells information. But is this really so different than the past? I suspect that, back in Krause’s salad days, the catalogs were basically prestige products—loss-leaders for the real meat of its publication business, which was the various collector publications it sold, like Numismatic News, also on subscription. I do see the virtue in having a single cataloging protocol for new banknotes. Some have called for a collector organization like the IBNS take over the Pick numbering system and administer it, assigning new numbers to banknotes the way the IAU identifies new celestial stuff. Given the challenges of collective action, that is unlikely to happen. For the foreseeable future, and for better or for worse, world currency collectors will have to get used to multiple cataloging system. Chump Change Loren Gatch SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 154 SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 155 SPMC.org * Paper Money * March/April 2022 * Whole Number 338 156 OUR MEMBERS SPECIALIZE IN NATIONAL CURRENCY They also specialize in Large Size Type Notes, Small Size Currency, Obsolete Currency, Colonial and Continental Currency, Fractionals, Error Notes, MPC’s, Confederate Currency, Encased Postage, Stocks and Bonds, Autographs and Documents, World Paper Money . . . and numerous other areas. THE PROFESSIONAL CURRENCY DEALERS ASSOCIATION is the leading organization of OVER 100 DEALERS in Currency, Stocks and Bonds, Fiscal Documents and related paper items. PCDA To be assured of knowledgeable, professional, and ethical dealings when buying or selling currency, look for dealers who proudly display the PCDA emblem. For further information, please contact: The Professional Currency Dealers Association PCDA • Holds its annual National Currency Convention in conjunction with the Central States Numis- matic Society’s anniversary convention. Please visit our Web Site pcda.com for dates and location. • Encourages public awareness and education regarding the hobby of Paper Money Collecting. • Sponsors the John Hickman National Currency Exhibit Award each June at the International Paper Money Show, as well as Paper Money classes and scholarships at the A.N.A.’s Summer Seminar series. • Publishes several “How to Collect” booklets regarding currency and related paper items. Availability of these booklets can be found on our Web Site. • Is a proud supporter of the Society of Paper Money Collectors. Or Visit Our Web Site At: www.pcda.com James A. Simek – Secretary P.O. Box 7157 • Westchester, IL 60154 (630) 889-8207 • email: nge3@comcast.net Paul R. 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