All reasonable guesses but it's the vignette at upper left.
It's the capture of Major Andre, Benedict Arnold's spy messenger, just north of Tarrytown. The kneeling guy is holding the boot in which the plans to West Point were found. This vignette only appears on notes of two banks, Westchester County Bank and the Bank of Tarrytown.
Since both banks were "good", as were most in NY state due to tighter regulations than other states, their notes were all redeemed. Counterfeits weren't made of these particular designs, so the few survivors are quite rare. There are quite probably fewer notes surviving on this bank than there are 1804 dollars or maybe even 1913 Liberty Nickels. Likely survivors number in the single digits. At one time, there were thousands, maybe even 10,000+, but nearly all have been redeemed. So, Lance get partial credit for answer #4.
It is unfortunate that the obsolete bank notes are often called "broken" bank notes. Many of the banks, such as this one, did not go broke and redeemed their notes. I believe a few of the banks still exist under different names and will still redeem the notes today!
I quizzed the head librarian on the design today, he did not guess it, few would.
"It's the capture of Major Andre, Benedict Arnold's spy messenger, just north of Tarrytown. The kneeling guy is holding the boot in which the plans to West Point were found. This vignette only appears on notes of two banks, Westchester County Bank and the Bank of Tarrytown."
Comments
The supposed rare overdate, XF-AU: http://i.imgur.com/DCuxi1H.jpg
Lance,
All reasonable guesses but it's the vignette at upper left.
It's the capture of Major Andre, Benedict Arnold's spy messenger, just north of Tarrytown. The kneeling guy is holding the boot in which the plans to West Point were found. This vignette only appears on notes of two banks, Westchester County Bank and the Bank of Tarrytown.
Since both banks were "good", as were most in NY state due to tighter regulations than other states, their notes were all redeemed. Counterfeits weren't made of these particular designs, so the few survivors are quite rare. There are quite probably fewer notes surviving on this bank than there are 1804 dollars or maybe even 1913 Liberty Nickels. Likely survivors number in the single digits. At one time, there were thousands, maybe even 10,000+, but nearly all have been redeemed. So, Lance get partial credit for answer #4.
It is unfortunate that the obsolete bank notes are often called "broken" bank notes. Many of the banks, such as this one, did not go broke and redeemed their notes. I believe a few of the banks still exist under different names and will still redeem the notes today!
"It's the capture of Major Andre, Benedict Arnold's spy messenger, just north of Tarrytown. The kneeling guy is holding the boot in which the plans to West Point were found. This vignette only appears on notes of two banks, Westchester County Bank and the Bank of Tarrytown."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Andr%C3%A9