Checks Mix. It's Tasty! (Part 2)

Sorry Dan for stealing your title.

Anyway, I recently picked up a lot of RN checks pretty much sight unseen (one of those auction lots where you have to rely solely on the description.

Here are some of the better ones that I have found.

RN-D1 Rocky Mountain National Bank Bill of Exchange


RN-B1 First National Bank of Helena


RN-B1 Kountze Brothers & Co. Bankers (Unlisted by Castenholz)


RN-D1 Deseret National Bank with Vignette of Eagle and Beehive (Unlisted)


RN-B1 Colorado National Bank with 1866 Vignette of Denver
Dated September 14, 1868 before Colorado statehood


RN-G1 Colorado National Bank with a Different Vignette of (I assume) Denver
Printed by National Bank Note Company (Unlisted)
Dated April 24, 1882 after Colorado statehood


RN-D1 First National Bank of Georgetown Colorado Printed by Western Bank Note & Engraving Co., Chicago (Unlisted)


RN-X7 Vindicator Consolidated Gold Mining Co.


RN-C13 Printed in Salmon? T. J. Carter & Co. Bankers, Golden City Colorado (Unlisted)


RN-C1 Also printed in Salmon? Merchants & Farmers National Bank of Quincy Illinois (Unlisted)


RN-X7 First National Bank of Manchester (NH) (Unlisted)


RN-K6 First National Bank of Denver
Interesting back story on D. H. Moffat, Jr.
https://historicdenver.org/wp-conte...-history.pdf


RN-B1 L. H. Hershfield & Co.


RN-B1 L. H. Hershfield & Bro.


RN-B6 L. H. Hershfield with and Co. Handwritten in Ink


RN-P5 Rocky Mountain National Bank Certificate of Deposit


RN-Q1 Rocky Mountain National Bank Certificate of Deposit with Stamp Redeemed Reading Up as the tax had expired by September 23, 1873 and the tax was refunded


RN-B16 Oregon and California Rail Road Company Check signed by President Ben Holladay


RN-B1 on a very attractive First National Bank of New York Jay Cooke & Co. Bankers Dated August 8, 1873 for $150,000 ($3.9 million in today's dollars)


RN-B1 Cayuga County National Bank of Auburn NY with Metropolitan Crossed Out and The First printed in Red


I'm certainly no expert on these so comments are more than welcome.

Something I know nothing about, apart from the fact that they're beautiful

Nice group. If that was lot #617, I think I was bidding against you. I dropped out about half way through the house estimate. I didn't want to go all-in without a better idea of what was included. Congrats on the win, some nice items there.

no idea what you paid, but there are some premium checks in the lot. If you were bidding blind it was probably a very good deal

You are correct ZebraMan.

I figured it was worth the risk considering how much I threw away on PowerBall.



By the way, I think I mentioned it before, lots like this are based on how risky of a gambler one is.

Sometimes they work out and sometimes they don't.

This one.............

The Castenholz "Field Guide to Revenue Stamped Paper" volumes have generated considerable positive interest in this field, but are a mere scratching of the surface of what exists. As an example, I participated in a survey of Indiana RN-X7 imprints. Castenholz lists 6 items. Our list is now up to 90. As his introductory text cautions, there are lots of new discoveries to be made.

(And yes, a very nice group!)

Agreed John. It would be nice to have a repository to upload new discoveries.

Would you mind telling where this auction was? I'd love to see what else was offered in this sale. Thanks!

You can find a lot of nice auctions listed on Stamp Auction Network. There is a small ABC Aldrich auction this week Thurs/Fri/Sat, and then next week a big 4-day auction by Schuyler Rumsey in conjunction with the Westpex stamp show in San Francisco that has some very nice items worth browsing.
Are you looking for anything in particular?

WheatBack,

It was Golden Oak on March 30.
on Stamp Auction Network

I will try to post some more this weekend. This was only a very small sampling.

As promised more images. These are just so freaking cool.

RN-X7 Hoge, Brownlee & Co. Butte City, Montana


RN-B1 National Bank of Colorado Central City


RX-X7 Union Gold Mining Company Bank of Victor, Colorado


RN-G1 W. A. Cone Insurance Agency National Bank of New England
Nice Fire Engine Vignette


RN-D1 F. E. Everett, Banker Golden, Colorado
Nice Train Vignette


RN-G1 Hershfield & Brothers Banking House Helena, Montana Territory
8 Years Before Statehood


RN-G1 Donnell, Clark & Larabie Banks Deer Lodge, Montana Territory

A little backstory:
https://www.verdigrisproject.org/bu...-amp-larabie

RN-D1 City National Bank of Denver
Indian Vignette


RN-N3 Neptune Twine Mills of East Haddam, Connecticut

What a splendid group! I don't know what you paid per check, but these are all terrific pieces. I find the banknote engraved checks the most interesting and there are many vignettes here that I haven't seen before. That $150,000 check is outstanding! Can you tell who it is made out to? Checks of that amount were usually for a historically significant purchase.

$150,000 to "Ourselves"
Who better!

Indeed a very interesting and historically significant check. The Banker Jay Cooke wrote that huge check to himself about a month before the bank that he ran went bankrupt, and that helped trigger the "Panic of 1873" in the US.

Here is what Wikipedia says about Jay Cooke & Co. Bankers around August 8, 1873 when the check was written . . .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Cooke_&_Company
Jay Cooke & Company was a U.S. bank that operated from 1861 to 1873. Headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with branches in New York City and Washington, D.C., the bank helped underwrite the Union Civil War effort. It was the first "wire" brokerage house, pioneering the use of telegraph messages to confirm securities transactions with clients. The bank became overextended in the building of the Northern Pacific Railway and failed, contributing to the Panic of 1873.
...
Cooke & Company wrote liabilities against expected returns from the sale of its Northern Pacific Railroad bonds, but ultimately could not sell enough bonds to meet its obligations. A run on the bank ensued, and its operations were suspended. When the New York Stock Exchange heard the announcement, equities plummeted, causing a chain reaction of bank runs and failures throughout the United States that signaled the arrival of the Panic of 1873 to American shores.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1873
In September 1873, Jay Cooke & Company, a major component of the country's banking establishment, found itself unable to market several million dollars in Northern Pacific Railway bonds. Jay Cooke's firm, like many others, had invested heavily in the railroads. Some investment banks were then anxious for more capital for their enterprises, US President Ulysses S. Grant's monetary policy of contracting the money supply and thus raising interest rates made matters worse for those in debt. Businesses were expanding, but the money they needed to finance that growth was becoming scarcer.
Cooke and other entrepreneurs had planned to build the second transcontinental railroad, the Northern Pacific Railway. Cooke's firm provided the financing, and ground for the line was broken near Duluth, Minnesota, on 15 February 1870. The railroad had borrowed more than $1.5 million from Cooke & Co, but was incapable of paying it back. An expanding funding gap became harder to resolve due to the Credit Mobilier scandal. Due to the financial crises in Europe, Cooke could not sell the securities abroad. Just as Cooke was about to swing a $300 million government loan in September 1873, reports circulated that his firm's credit had become nearly worthless. On 18 September, the firm declared bankruptcy.


Edit:
Further down the rabbit hole of The Internet,
"In 1880, [Hallet Kilbourn] a former executive of Jay Cooke refused to testify before Congress [about the bankruptcy] and was found in contempt and detained. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to release him in Kilbourn v. Thompson."

Fast forward to today's news and there is a connection to this case and Trump.
"The earliest Supreme Court ruling on Congress' investigative authority is Kilbourn v. Thompson, an 1880 case that established that Congress can only pursue investigations as an extension of its power to craft legislation. At the time, this ruling limited Congress from pursuing an investigation into a private individual, even if it could lead to future legislation. This is why Trump's lawyers and those at the Treasury Department repeatedly claim that Congress lacks a "legitimate legislative purpose" to enforce subpoenas."

Tremendous research, ZebraMan! Really makes you wonder whether Cooke was looting his own bank, knowing what was to come.