Civil War Era Stock And Bond Acquisitons

Some stock certificates I've acquired over the last 6 months or so. While not as ornate as those of the late 19th and early 20th century, my area of focus is primarily Civil War era material.

From the mundane to the not so mundane...

































































And lastly, one that I've wanted an example of for quite some time. Affordable examples of this one are usually beat to hell and back; nice ones approach 4 figures and above. I managed to get this one for much less.

I wanted an example, not just for the signatories, but for the cancel attribution. I've seen this circled star cancel used on various 5-cent stamps, but without a use on document there was no context. It was only upon seeing this cancel in pictures of American Express stock certificates from this era that I made the connection.

What makes this so valuable is that it is signed by Henry Wells and William Fargo, the founders of Wells Fargo.

Fascinating collection, revenuecollector! Thanks for showing it.

Railroads and mining! A large chunk of our history.

The Panama Railroad became a very profitable venture. 49'ers paid $25 to ride the train or $5 to walk the rails. Walking the rails was not a walk in the park.

Beautiful engravings on some of those stock certificates (Scripophily, I believe is the name for that collecting discipline.)

I'm familiar with at least two of those mining companies and one Railroad. They had some history around my current area. Fascinating and some are very beautiful! Thank you Revenuecollector for scanning these!

Dan,

On your larger stock certificates, how do you scan them? Do you have an extra large scanner? I have a couple that are perhaps 16x24 and there is no way it'll fit on my scanner. At best, I might get a scan of just a part of the top.

Art

Art,

Something that large you're going to have to make multiple scans and digitally stitch them together, which is a ROYAL pain. The lighting refelections are never identical on multiple passes, and trying to rotate the images exactly right so they line up accurately is a virtually impossible task. There will almost always be a slight misalignment if someone looks closely.

My secondary scanner, a Fujitsu fi-5750c has a 12"x18" maximum image size, which is about the largest flatbed scanner on the market. There are larger scanners, but they tend to be floorstanding sheetfed scanners meant for scanning blueprints and are not appropriate for delicate materials. Also they are insanely expensive.

Even a good quality 11x17 or 12x18 flatbed is not going to be cheap. As I mentioned in this thread, the original list price for my scanner was almost $9,000, now findable on the used market for $300-600... which is actually dirt cheap for what it can do. It doesn't have the optical resolution of today's modern scanners, at only 600dpi native resolution, but for most purposes I would use it for, it is more than adequate. It's lightning fast as a scanner as well... much faster than I would have expected.

You could always try using a digital camera, but that has a host of problems: keeping the document flat, even lighting, etc.

I have not found a good solution for oversized documents. Sometimes you have to make due with only scanning portions. I have some large vellum indentures that I would love to image, but their large size combined with the stiffness of the material, makes it all but impossible.

The 12x18 image size on the Fujitsu is large enough to accommodate 95%+ of what I need to scan, which is close enough for govornment work. Dealing with an 8.5x11 or 8.5x14 max image size was just far too constraining.

Dan, Thanks for the info. Some of my slave documents are getting in bad shape and I really need to scan them before they start falling apart. I'll try and see if I can photoshop them into 1 image, when I have a few hours to spend.

There is one document I have dated early 1800s that will always remain with me. "One Negro woman aged about 20 years named Alice, a slave for life." I have several others but that one, WOW, that says a lot in one sentence. This one has an RM revenue.

My larger stock certificates, I'll just make an image of the stamps and the perhaps the top of the document.

Art
Edited for content.

These are terrific! Thanks for posting.

I picked up a bond recently that is precisely Civil War era -- a Confederate States $500 bond from 1863. You find Union soldiers on many stocks and bonds from that period, but very few that depict Confederate soldiers.

All of these are great!