A series of dumb - but perhaps mildly useful - questions about the making of Obsolete Currency

PreTurb

I know these are broad newbie questions, but would appreciate some opinions. I haven't quickly noticed the answers to these in the Bowers' books, for example.

1) In that era, would banknote companies basically make anything at any time for anyone with money? Or did they strive to avoid work that was illegitimate? Some spurious issues had signatures engraved on the printing plates. Wouldn't such a request have been an obvious tip-off to the banknote firm? Or did they sell the printing plates and that "extra" engraving was done later by someone else?

2) If there were two branch locations of the same banknote firm, can is be assumed that the FIRST location listed on a note was the place of manufacture of that particular note? Example: "Toppan Carpenter, New York & Philadelphia" versus "Toppan Carpenter, Philadelphia & New York". In the case of spurious and counterfeit notes, I imagine just about any "banknote co" name could have been used at any time, so you really can't assume the name is factual... correct?

The questions derive from the situation where a legit note and a spurious note were produced by different banknote branch locations. Might this explain why Branch #2 (who was approached by Fraudulent John from Joe's Bank) made spurious notes for Fraudulent John, whereas Branch #1 (who is familiar with Legit Joe from Joe's bank) would have known not to make notes for Fraudulent John? I just made my own head hurt.

Or, can no conclusions be made at all, since it was such a wild-west era?

sellitstore

These are good questions. They show that you are really thinking about exactly how this system worked. I think that I can help clarify things, at least a bit.

First, the definitions can be confusing-particularly when fraudulent notes were printed by legitimate bank note companies for banks that didn't exist or were created only to issue notes and dump them. These notes are classified as "Genuine" even though they never represented actual money nor were ever redeemable by anyone. Many Washington, DC banks fall into this category. The high quality of their printing and fact that they were printed by the same legitimate bank note companies that were printing good notes for good banks is why we classify them today as genuine.

Genuine notes were printed by a limited number of companies who were legitimate firms that did not want to be involved in anything that might shut them down. And generally, they were the only firms that had skilled enough engravers to create the highest quality bank notes. Counterfeit and spurious notes were produced by counterfeiters, not bank note companies, who usually didn't have the ability to produce the best quality notes.

Bank note companies controlled their plates and kept them from private hands. This was either state law or in the printing contract, or both. In NY, the state created documentation each time a plate was used and notes printed from it delivered. Ohio's state bank note plates were controlled by provisions in their ABN contract. Generally bank note companies retained or destroyed plates. Sometimes plates were returned to the bank (usually not) and some of these have been defaced by scratching, some not. Counterfeit plates were in private hands and could really show anything, including engraved signatures, used on some later plates for genuine notes as well. Finished plates are rare and counterfeit ones make up a small minority of those surviving today.

On your second question, I'm really not sure if there is consistency in how the location was expressed. I would presume that the first location was the main office where printing was done but I'm not sure if a second location was always a sight of production or just a sales office. I'd presume, at least in most cases, NY was the main office and "Phila" or "New Orleans" or "Boston" was the facility where the note was printed. But I don't know if this is consistent or always the case. There aren't that many different second locations on notes and I think that there were probably sales offices in more cities, so the second listed city is probably the actual location of the printing.

I don't think that the situation that you describe in your last paragraph would ever happen. A branch of a bank would never make a bank note printing/issue decision without the main branch being involved. Each would have to cash the notes when presented, so you are not going to get the main office ordering notes from a legitimate bank note company while the branch manager is doing business with a fly-by-night firm. Legit banks didn't do business with fly-by-night firms and weren't even permitted to do business with firms other than approved by the states, in many states. And branches of the same bank would coordinate their designs and issues.

The idea that this was a wild west era is really exaggerated. Yes, at certain times and in certain areas things were difficulties and losses but there were always millions of dollars of legitimate, genuine paper money in circulation during every year of the 19th century. And did the introduction of Federal currency in the 1860s make the counterfeit problem go away? No. Counterfeiting continued to be pretty widespread for decades to come, especially 1st series nationals and 1860s LTs.

Steve_in_Tampa

Great explanation Russell.
The only thing I’ll add is, back when these Obsolete notes were circulating, they often traded at a discount depending on far away the issuing source was. In other words, a $3 note issued by the Tallahassee Railroad Company may be valued less in South Carolina, and maybe even less in New Jersey.