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VOL. XXXV No. 5
WHOLE No. 185
Mt NI
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N iUNORER
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VISA'El, 11111111111•111
We Welcome
Call Toll Free
1-800-622-1880
Stephen Goldsmith'
Bruce Hagen
members
SOCIETY OF
PAPER MONEY
COLLECTORS
INC.MEMBER
Where Historic Paper Collections of the World Are
Researched, Auctioned, Bought and Sold
NY 212-943-1880 • Fax 212-908-4047 orwasergi
Thinking of Selling? Have You Thought About This?
You've enjoyed collecting currency for many years, and now you are seri-
ously thinking about selling. Should you value the entire collection and offer
it, at a wholesale price to a dealer? Will you publish a full-page advertisement
in a paper money newspaper or mail out your own price list or catalogue?
We suggest that you do what most experienced collectors have done with
their better material - sell at auction. And once you have decided to sell your
collection at auction you will need to select an auction company. There are
many things that should be taken into consideration, but one question you
should always ask is "Where and when will my material be sold?".
At R. M. Smythe and Company, we think the answer to the "where" part
of that question is relatively simple. Important collections of paper money
should be auctioned at paper money shows.
If your collection was in our June Memphis International Paper Money
Auction it could have been viewed by over 150 of the world's most significant
paper money dealers, and by the hundreds of serious collectors who came to
the show every day to buy. The auction results speak for themselves.
Federal Currency in the June, Memphis Auction was very strong. Lot 1023,
the $20 1863 Legal Tender (Fr.126b), Choice Almost Uncirculated realized
$3,500. Lot 1051, a cut sheet of four $5 1899 Silver Certificates sold for
$3,050. Lot 1140, the Portland, Maine $10 Red Seal brought $4,500 and Lot
1154, the $2 Moniteau NB of California, Missouri "Lazy Two" sold for
$4,000.
Confederate Currency was in great demand as can be seen by the $10,000
hammer price realized for Lot 1392, an extremely rare contemporary counter-
feit of the $5 1861 "Indian Princess" note, and the $100 1861 T-3, Lot 1383,
brought $7,000. A superb collection of obsolete bank note proofs from
Louisiana, Lots 1,527-1,531, brought record prices of from $3,400 to 4,200
each. The possibly unique Garden City, Minnesota, proof sheet, Lot 1543, sold
for $9,500.
The most extraordinary results were achieved by an outstanding group of
Alaska Clearing House Certificates, meticulously researched and fully-illus-
trated in the catalogue. Lots 1440-1446, including the $1, $2, $5, $10, $20,
$50 and $100, realized $5,000, $4,500, $5,000, $5,000, $5,500, $6,000 and
$8,000 respectively.
We strongly believe that the best way to sell a paper money collection is at
auction. There are no substitutes for experience, thorough research, proper pre-
sentation, and a location that makes sense, and that is why, at R. M. Smythe
and Company, we are committed to conducting our paper money auctions at
paper money shows.
Consignments are now being accepted
for our 1996-1997 Auction Schedule.
October 25, 1996. Currency, Stocks and Bonds. The St. Louis National and
World Paper Money Show. St. Louis, Missouri.
February 22, 1997. Currency, Stocks and Bonds. The Chicago International
Paper Money Exposition. Chicago, Illinois
June 1997. Currency, Stocks and Bonds. Memphis International Auction.
To find out how easy it is to consign your collection to any of the auctions list-
ed above, or to subscribe, call Stephen Goldsmith, Douglas Ball or Bruce
Hagen at 800-622-1880 or 212-943-1880.
26 Broadway, New York, NY 10004-1701
SOCIETY
OF
PAPER MONEY
COLLECTORS
INC.
Paper Money Whole No. 185 Page 169
PAPER MONEY is published every other month
beginning in January by The Society of Paper
Money Collectors. Second class postage paid at
Dover, DE 19901. Postmaster send address
changes to: Bob Cochran, Secretary, P.O. Box
1085, Florissant, MO 63031.
Society of Paper Money Collectors, Inc., 1996.
All rights reserved. Reproduction of any article,
in whole or in part, without express written
permission, is prohibited
Individual copies of this issue of PAPER
MONEY are available from the Secretary for
$2.75 each plus $1 postage. Five or more copies
are sent postage free.
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To keep rates at a minimum, advertising must be
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Rates are not commissionable. Proofs are not
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Deadline: Copy must be in the editorial office
no later than the 1st of the month preceding
issue (e.g., Feb. 1 for March/April issue). With
advance notice, camera-ready copy will be ac-
cepted up to three weeks later.
Mechanical Requirements: Full page 42-57 pi-
cas; half-page may be either vertical or horizon-
tal in format. Single column width, 20 picas.
Halftones acceptable, but not mats or stereos.
Page position may be requested but cannot be
guaranteed.
Advertising copy shall be restricted to paper
currency and allied numismatic material and
publications and accessories related thereto.
SPMC does not guarantee advertisements but
accepts copy in good faith, reserving the right to
reject objectionable material or edit any copy.
SPMC assumes no financial responsibility for
typographical errors in advertisements, but agrees
to reprint that portion of an advertisement in
which typographical error should occur upon
prompt notification of such error.
Al !advertising copy and correspondence should
be sent to the Editor.
Official Bimonthly Publication of
The Society of Paper Money Collectors, Inc.
Vol. XXXV No. 5 Whole No. 185 SEPT/OCT 1996
ISSN 0031-1162
GENE HESSLER, Editor, P.O. Box 8147, St. Louis, MO 63156
Manuscripts (mss), not under consideration elsewhere, and publications for review
should be sent to the Editor. Accepted was will be published as soon as possible;
however, publication in a specific issue cannot be guaranteed. Opinions expressed
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Mss are to be typed on one side only, double-spaced with at least one-inch
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In addition, although it is not required, you are encouraged to submit a copy on
a 3 1/2 or 51/4 inch MS DOS disk, identified with the name and version of software
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IN THIS ISSUE
ELLIS H. ROBERTS PRINTER'S DEVIL TO
WILLIAM WILLIAMS
Forrest W. Daniel
171
THE BUCK STARTS HERE
Gene Hessler 173
SORTING THE ISSUES OF NEW YORK CITY
Stephen M. Goldberg 174
THE BASICS
Bob Cochran
180
ALPHONSE MUCHA, ART NOVEAU AND PAPER MONEY ARTIST
Gene Hessler 181
ABOUT TEXAS, MOSTLY
TEXAS FIRST CHARTER NATIONAL BANK NOTES
Frank Clark
190
HOW MANY NUMBER ONE SHEETS OF 1899 $2 SILVER
CERTIFICATES WERE PRODUCED?
lack H. Fisher
192
THE SCRIPOPI-IILY CORNER
THE ORIGIN OF COLLECTIBLE CERTIFICATES
Pierre Bonneau 193
MONEY TALES
Forrest W. Daniel
194
SOCIETY FEATURES
PUBLICATION CONTRIBUTORS 195
AWARDS IN MEMPHIS 196
NEW LITERATURE 196
NEW MEMBERS 197
MONEY MART 198
ONTHECOVER.This portrait ofAlp honse Mucha was engraved by the
Czech security engraver Vadat , Fajt. See page 181.
For change of address, inquiries concerning non -delivery of PAPER
MONEYand for additional copies of this issue contact the Secretary; the
address is on the next page. For earlier issues contact Classic Coins, P.O.
Box 95, Allen, MI 49227.
SOCIETY OF PAPER MONEY COLLECTORS
OFFICERS
PRESIDENT
DEAN OAKES, Drawer 1456, Iowa City, IA 52240
VICE-PRESIDENT
FRANK CLARK, P.O. Box 117060, Carrollton, TX 75011
SECRETARY
ROBERTCOCHRAN, P.O. Box 1085, Florissant, MO 63031
TREASURER
TIM KYZIVAT, P.O. Box 803, LaGrange, IL 60525
APPOINTEES
EDITOR GENE HESSLER, P.O. Box 8147,
St. Louis, MO 63156
MEMBERSHIP DIRECTOR
FRANK CLARK, P.O. Box 117060, Carrollton, TX 75011
WISMER BOOK PROJECT
STEVEN K. WHITFIELD, 14092 W. 115th St., Olathe, KS
66062
LEGAL COUNSEL
ROBERT J. GALIETTE, 10 Wilcox Lane, Avon, CT 06001
LIBRARIAN
ROGER H. DURAND, P.O. Box 186, Rehoboth, MA 02769
PAST-PRESIDENT
JUDITH MURPHY, P.O. Box 24056, Winston Salem, NC
27114
BOARD OF GOVERNORS
RAPHAEL ELLENBOGEN, 1840 Harwitch Rd., Upper
Arlington, OH 43221
C. JOHN FERRERI, P.O. Box 33, Storrs, CT 06268
GENE HESSLER, P.O. Box 8147, St. Louis, MO 63156
RON HORSTMAN, 5010 Timber Lane, Gerald, MO 63037
MILTON R. FRIEDBERG, 8803 Brecksville Rd. #7-203,
Brecksville, OH 44141-1933
STEPHEN TAYLOR, 70 West View Avenue, Dover, DE 19901
WENDELL W. WOLKA, P.O. Box 569, Dublin, OH 43017
STEVEN K. WHITFIELD, 14092 W. 115th St., Olathe, KS
66062
The Society of Paper Money Collectors was organized
in 1961 and incorporated in 1964 as a non-profit or-
ganization under the laws of the District of Columbia.
It is affiliated with the American Numismatic Associa-
tion. The annual meeting is held at the Memphis IPMS
in June.
MEMBERSHIP—REGULAR and LIFE. Applicants must
be at least 18 years of age and of good moral character.
JUNIOR. Applicants must be from 12 to 18 years of age
and of good moral character. Their application must be
signed by a parent or guardian. They will be preceded by
the letter "j". This letter will be removed upon notifica-
tion to the secretary that the member has reached 18
years of age. Junior members are not eligible to hold
office or vote.
Members of the ANA or other recognized numismatic
societies are eligible for membership. Other applicants
should be sponsored by an SMPC member or provide
suitable references.
DUES—Annual dues are $24. Members in Canada and
Mexico should add $5 to cover additional postage;
members throughout the rest of the world add $10. Life
membership, payable in installments within one year, is
$300. Members who join the Society prior to Oct. 1st
receive the magazines already issued in the year in
which they join. Members who join after Oct. 1st will
have their dues paid through December of the following
year. They will also receive, as a bonus, a copy of the
magazine issued in November of the year in which they
joined.
BUYING and SELLING
CSA and Obsolete Notes
CSA Bonds, Stocks &
Financial Items
Extensive Catalog for $3.00,
Refundable With Order
ANA-LM
SCNA
PCDA
HUGH SHULL
P.O. Box 761, Camden, SC 29020 (803) 432-8500
FAX 803-432-9958
SPMC-LM
BRNA
FUN
Page 170
Paper Money Whole No. 185
HAT United States Treasurer Ellis Henry Roberts (Sep-
tember 30, 1827-January 8, 1918) began his career
as a printer's devil figures large in his biography. Rob-
erts was the last apprentice hired by William Williams near
the end of a long and distinguished career as printer, editor,
publisher and book seller in Utica, New York. While a young
man, Williams produced vignettes for scrip issued by the Vil-
lage of Utica in 1815, so there are solid numismatic creden-
tials in the background of the man who had some influence
on the boy who was to become Treasurer of the United States.
William Williams, of Puritan descent, was born at
Framingham, Massachusetts in 1787. The family moved to the
Utica area in 1790. He was a printer's devil, the stage leading
to an apprenticeship, in the printing shops of William McLean
and Asahel Seward in Utica from 1800 to 1807. As an appren-
tice, Williams may have had some part in the production of A
Description of Counterfeit Bills, published by Seward in 1806. 1
Upon completion of his seven-year apprenticeship he became
a partner in the firm Seward & Williams at age twenty.
Seward & Williams, and later Williams as sole proprietor,
printed a wide variety of books and pamphlets as well as the
usual run of job printing. The printer's devil and apprentice
was exposed to it all: the annual almanacs, newspapers, school
text books on a wide variety of subjects, lectures, essays, nov-
els, religious and anti-Masonic books and collections of mu-
sic. The printer read the books, not sentence by sentence but
letter by letter, often correcting the copy as he set the type.
In 1808 William Williams began to manufacture the paper
the firm used in many of their books. The paper was a thin
and tough rag paper used later for bank notes printed for Utica
banks, and in 1815 for the Village of Utica bearer checks drawn
on the Manhattan Branch Bank. Those notes, dated Aug. 1,
1815, were printed in sheets having two each of 3 cents, 6 1/4
cents, 12 1/2 cents, 25 cents, 50 cents and 75 cents; the imprint
"Seward and Williams Printers" appears on the 75 cent notes.
T
V91 Acttatem, e
Promise to pay
Manhattan
THREE
On Demand.
Taal, AVtca,
the Bearer at the
Branch Bank,
CENTS,
mi., Au , 1, 1815.
By order,
Ggut ,1t age olt Akt.tt-a )
Promise to pay the 4, Bearer, at the
Manhattan., ',":33r.tIttch Bank,
A F1 %TX CENTS,
GAR, .'9crr \xecd.m. oVu, eV"&i.ea.,
Bearer at tho
•°41-
Branch Bank,
FIVE CENTS
mica, august 1,1815.
By order,
I Promise to pay the
Manhattan
1 SEVENTY-
] On Demand.
TWELVE AND
On Demand. Utica,durast 1, 1815.
By order,
Paper Money Whole No. 185
Page 1 71
ELL s OBER
PRINTER'S DEVIL
To W EL AM ILL -AMS
by FORREST W. DANIEL
Editors in the nineteenth century asserted that an
apprenticeship in a printing office was a practical
equivalent to a college education. They named
many men who had gone from the print shop to
national prominence in law, literature and poli-
tics; even to naming James Buchanan, future presi-
dent of the United States, a printer—a talent not
mentioned in modern biographical sketches.
Fractional currency from the Village of Utica, 1815, with wood cuts by
William Williams. (Illustration from An Oneida County Printer.)
The center of each note had a wood engraving by William
Williams; most of the cuts had appeared before as ornaments
or tail-pieces in 1811 publications. Williams is considered by
some to have been the third person in the United States to
engage in the art of wood engraving.
The Utica Directory for 1817 carried only the name of Will-
iam Williams as publisher; when Seward retired from the pub-
lishing business, he retained his interest in the book store until
1824. Williams was in and out of the newspaper business sev-
eral times, was very active in political, community and church
affairs and publications relating to them; some of the subjects
he published were considered quite controversial—several had
been refused by other printers.
The firm Balch & Stiles, engravers on copper and plate print-
ers, was established in Utica in 1824 and did some work for
Williams. Vistus Balch and Samuel Stiles engraved maps of
Page 1 72 Paper Money Whole No. 185
New York state and Michigan as well as bank notes for Utica
and other western banks. Williams became a partner in the
company in 1828; their reputation and growth of business led
them to establish an office and workshop in New York City—
Balch, Stiles & Company, 34 Merchants' Exchange. That firm,
with others, established a forerunner of American Bank Note
Company.
Robert Roberts joined Williams's printing office in 1830 and
became foreman and the successor to the business. The year
1832 was a bad one for William Williams. His agency for the
Edinburgh Encyclopedia of Philadelphia, which he had held
since 1814, failed. It had been profitable for many years but
recent collections were poor; that, and nonpayment by princi-
pals of notes that Williams had co-signed, eventually caused
the failure of his entire enterprise. Williams's stock in trade
was sold at two sheriff's sales in 1834, but sale of his real es-
tate was delayed for several years, driving him further into debt.
The creditors operated the printing establishment with his
name as manager until 1840, but there is little doubt Robert
Roberts actually ran the business.
Williams moved to Tonawanda in 1836, but returned often
to Utica to take care of business matters. He was thrown from
the top of a stage coach in 1841 and struck his head; he never
fully recovered from the injury and financial loss and died in
Utica in 1850.
Ellis Roberts was the last apprentice, hired about the time
William Williams left Utica; it was 1836, and Ellis was nine
years old. The usual age for printer's devils was about thirteen,
but a printer's children began to set type as soon as they could
read and hold a composing stick; and of course, his oldest
brother, Robert, was the foreman. As printer's devil, Ellis had
the heavy and dirtiest work (printers need clean hands to
handle the paper). He wrote: "My own tasks were to push a
hand [ink] roller over the forms on the press; and, to reach the
handle, a box of considerable size was necessary to lift me to
the required level. Incidentally I washed the rollers [and the
inked type forms after the printing was finished], and as I re-
member well, carried wood and water up the high stairs." The
book store was on the ground floor, the bindery on the level
above and the printing office on the third floor at 60 Genesee
Street.
Whenever Ellis had some free time from his devil's chores
he read books borrowed from the book store downstairs. He
recalled for Williams's biographer: "Your grandfather came to
the office occasionally, ... Mr. Williams found me reading
Cooper's 'Lionel Lincoln,' . . . He questioned me of my esti-
mate of the characters, encouraged me to read good books,
saying that the story was a good lesson in patriotism, but some
other of Cooper's were of higher merit and more enjoyable.
That is the chief incident, to a lad of ten, which he has carried
in his memory for nearly half a century of a man with whom
his start in life was connected. . . ."
In a time when many apprentices labored under varying de-
grees of hardship and ill-treatment, Williams was noted for the
benevolent care and technical training his apprentices received.
Usuallywith several boys in training, Mrs. Williams maintained
a large-scale boarding house for the boys; she was a second
mother to them, mending their clothes, caring for them in sick-
ness and encouraging them to read in order that they might be
better editors and publishers. Under her influence several oth-
ers became ministers and missionaries. Mrs. Williams, herself,
is cited in a book about apprentices; but that prosperous period
was over before Ellis Roberts became the printer's devil.
Roberts continued his education at Whitestown Seminary
and Yale College by working as a printer; and upon his gradu-
ation in 1850 returned to Utica to be principal of Utica Free
Academy for a year. In 1851 he became editor of the Utica
Herald newspaper which his brother Robert, along with oth-
ers, established in 1847. He served the newspaper in an edito-
rial capacity until 1890, even while serving terms in the New
York state legislature in 1866 and Congress 1870-1875.
In the New York legislature Roberts, a Republican, was ac-
tive in the ways and means committee and his interest in fiscal
affairs continued in Congress where he took a prominent part
in the debates for the resumption of specie payments, refund-
ing the national debt and other legislation relating to mon-
etary policy. In 1889 he was appointed assistant treasurer of
the United States, a post he held until 1893 when he was re-
placed by a Democrat. He then accepted the presidency of the
Franklin National Bank in New York, a post he filled until he
was appointed Treasurer of the United States by the following
Republican administration in 1897; he held that position un-
til 1905.
Afs.-7rA_ z I, 7g a-7Y
Card autographed by Ellis H. Roberts
After his retirement Roberts returned to Utica and was ac-
tive in banking, consultation and a wide variety of civic and
cultural organizations until his death at age ninety.
Thus the relationship, however brief, between two printers
from Utica, New York: William Williams, who engraved and
printed fractional currency scrip in 1815, and his last printer's
devil, Ellis H. Roberts, whose facsimile signature, as Treasurer
of the United States, guaranteed the nation's currency for eight
years at the turn of the twentieth century.
END NOTE:
1. The earliest lists of counterfeit notes appeared in newspapers. Ac-
cording to Bank Note Reporters and Counterfeit Detectors, 1826-1866,
by William H. Dillistin, a single sheet with descriptions of coun-
terfeits was printed by The Centinel newspaper in Boston in the
latter part of 1805 and followed it in June 1806 with a small 12-
page pamphlet guide to New England bank bills and counterfeits.
Asahel Seward's A Description of Counterfeit Bills was advertised as
just published in the July 2, 1806 issue of The Patriot newspaper in
Utica.
(Continued on the following page)
Tin CENTRAL BANK
Or TRB BARAMAS
KAI. MARKT Of NO 410lifn
1,111..1.71111.
---4c--••-•...S.7.-tt,
. GOVFPN,
D852968
Paper Money Whole No. 185 Page 173
ACKNOWLEDGMENT:
Jack H. Fisher's article headed "Ellis I I. Roberts never got a break; he
worked," in the August 1995 Bank Note Reporter, prompted this sketch
of Roberts's younger years using specialized sources unfamiliar to his
reference librarians. Fisher's story gives a much broader view of
Roberts's long public career.
SOURCES:
Biographical directory of the American Congress, 1 774-1961. (1961).
Washington: GPO.
Dictionary of American Biography. (1935). New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons. (Both Roberts and Williams.)
Fielding, Mantle. (1974). Dictionary of American painters, sculptors and
engravers. Green Farms, CT: Modern Books and Crafts, Inc.
Hamilton, Milton W. (1936). The country printer, New York State, 1785-
1830. New York: Columbia University Press.
Rorabaugh, W.J. (1986). The craft apprentice: from Franklin to the ma-
chine age in America. New York: Oxford University Press.
Williams, John Camp. (1906/1974). An Oneida County Printer:
William \Vahan's, Printer, Publisher, Editor .... Harrison, NY:
Harbor 1-1 ill Books.
The Weekly Minnesotian, St. Paul, April 3, 1852.
The
Starts Here
A Primer for Collectors
by GENE HESSLER
UST about everyone wants to be associated with or
claim a hero. Christopher Columbus has been claimed
or at least honored on more bank notes than any other
human being. About 20 countries, including the United States
and Canada, have placed the image of the Italian sailor on
bank notes.
U.S. federal notes that show images of Columbus are: the
$5 first charter national bank notes and national gold bank
notes; $1,000 U.S. notes 1869-1880; $1 U.S. notes 1869-
191 7; all largesize $5 Federal Reserve and Federal Reserve Bank
notes. In nice condition all of these will cost more than the
average collector can afford. However, as an alternative, you
might consider souvenir cards. Each of the previously-men-
tioned notes is available on a souvenir card for under $10.
U.S. obsolete hank notes from about ten states also include
images of Columbus. Most of these might also be too expen-
sive. However, from the remaining countries who honored
Columbus there are at least three countries that issued notes
that most collectors can afford.
The most recent note was issued in 1992 by the Bahamas
for the 500th anniversary of the 1492 sailing. The Bahamas $1
note, produced by the Canadian Bank Note Co., includes a
very nice portrait engraved by the Canadian engraver Yves Baril.
Mr. Baril's engraving was based on a portrait by the Italian
painter Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (1483-1561). This extremely col-
orful note, with interesting anti-counterfeiting devices is avail-
able for $3 or $4, perhaps less.
The esteemed English-born American engraver Alfred Jones
(1819-1900) engraved a portrait for a series of notes printed
by American Bank Note Company for Costa Rica. The least
expensive note is the 50 centimos P(ick) 147; it should cost
about $20 in fine condition. Mr. Jones based his engraving on
a portrait that was adapted for a medal by Francisco Asis Lopez;
the medal was struck for the Centennial of Calderon.
Some say the Ghirlandaio portrait is the most accurate like-
ness of Columbus; others say it is the Lopez version.
Costa Rica issued a 2 colones P195, with a portrait also based
on the Lopez version. This was done by the British bank note
firm of Thomas De La Rue. In fine condition you should find
one for about $10.
It should not surprise you to find that Italy honored its na-
tive son. Two 5,000 lire notes, P72 and P76, should cost no
more than $10 each in nice condition. The model for this en-
graving is the portrait by Charles Legrand in the Naval Mu-
seum in Madrid.
The Legrand portrait also appears on a note from Spain, the
country that sponsored the voyage of Columbus. A 100 pese-
tas P118 in fine condition might be available for under $20.
In addition, Spain issued four other notes, three with images
of Columbus and one with Queen Isabella alone. The 1 peseta
notes P127 and P128, and the 5 pesetas P126 and P129 should
be modestly priced in uncirculated or near uncirculated con-
dition.
These notes and souvenir cards along with a selection of
world coins that bear the portrait of Christopher Columbus
would make an attractive display for a class at school or at
your local coin club.
(Copyright story reprinted by permission from Coin World, Oct. 24,
1994.)
■■ OBSOLETE MOTES
■
■ Also C5A, Continental & Colonial, Stocks &■
Bonds, Autographs & Civil War Related■
■ Material.
•
•
LARGE CAT. $2.00 Ref.
■ Always Buying at Top Prices
■
■ RICHARD T. HOOBER, JR.
■ P.O. Box 3116, Key Largo, FL 33037•
■ FM or Phone (305) 853-0105■
golden -Wnniversary
NEW -YORK CITY
Yo,
JUL 31
9 - A M
la
Mrs. Ralph Bennett
Coopersville, Mich,
Page 1 74
Paper Money Whole No. 185
SORTING THE ISSUES OF NEW
YORK CITY
Not-es from The Territorial Area of
Ore0er New York
by STEPHEN M. GOLDBERG
ODAY'S New York City, unofficially called Greater New
York when distinction with the original city is neces-
sary, comprises five sections called boroughs, an ar-
rangement dating only to 1898. Having grown-up in the
current version, I wasn't particularly conscious that it had not
been always thus, so that when I began to collect its obsolete
notes, I didn't realize that I was inadvertently confining my-
self to only one of the boroughs: "New York" as a location on
a note meant the entire modern city to me, but meant Man-
hattan only at the time the notes were issued. It was quite
awhile before it finally dawned on me to look for notes marked
"Brooklyn." At some point I began to inquire about issues from
the remaining boroughs, but all I got were strange looks, at
least initially. In the absence of a definitive New York State
scrip catalogue it is difficult to be precise, but on the basis of
conversations with individuals far more experienced than I, it
appears that obsolete notes are known from nine locations
within the territorial area of the present city. It is probable
that scrip once existed from many other villages and towns
but no longer survive and, with the absence of records, are
forever lost to history. I'll set the stage with a brief, essentially
geographic history of Greater New York, continue with a de-
scription of the real New York— never mind what I said in
PAPER MONEY No. 179—then illustrate a specimen, with
some hopefully appropriate commentary accompanying, from
each locality for which an obsolete note exists. A convenient
map of the scene may be found in Figure 1.
I: A Basic History of Greater New York
No one really knows how Manhattan got its name. The tradi-
tional story is that the island was inhabited by an Indian tribe
variously called the Manhattans or Manhattoes, but some
scholars believe that there were no permanent settlements on
the island so that the Indians that Peter Minuit encountered
were just a group of original New Yorkers passing by who took
the opportunity to flimflam a tourist out of $24. A second,
independent tradition has it that Henry Hudson invited some
natives to sup aboard the Half Moon, and when the chiefs and
braves regained consciousness, they named the place
Manahatchtanienk, which means, in the Delaware language,
"the place where we all got drunk," or so it is written.
Popular-type city histories give two different dates as the
date of the first settlement. The first of the first settlements
began in 1624 when a ship from the Dutch West India Com-
pany under Captain Cornelis May dropped off a small group
at Governors Island, just south of Manhattan. The second of
the first settlements began in 1625 when an expedition under
Governor William Verhulst arrived on Manhattan with explicit
instructions to establish a colony. By the time Minuit had ar-
T
Figure 1: A map of New York City, 1948.
Paper Money Whole No. 185 Page 175
rived, the Governors Island settlers had already floated them-
selves and their cattle the 500 yards north to the larger island.
His famous 1626 purchase may be taken as the formal or "le-
gal" founding of the settlement.
Originating as New Amsterdam with a municipal govern-
ment first established in 1653, the city grew into a farming,
ship building, and shipping community as its port developed,
and by the end of the eighteenth century it was for brief peri-
ods both the capital of the state and the capital of the United
States. In the nineteenth century it became the seat ofTammany
Hall, the most corrupt municipal government ever seen; the
site of the Draft Riot, the worst urban riot in the history of the
United States; and the center of, in the view of some histori-
ans, the greatest financial plot ever hatched, the successful
scheme to destroy the second Bank of the United States and
make Wall Street the country's principal money power.
Whereas the original Dutch settlers formed a concentrated
settlement in Lower Manhattan, everywhere else they seem to
have preferred to spread out, living in sparsely populated farm-
ing hamlets and leaving it first to the English and later the
Americans to create the villages and towns that began to dot
the map. One of the hamlets was little Breukelen at the middle
of the western edge of Long Island. The newcomers moved
into the area, creating first a fire district with the hamlet at the
center, a town on the boundaries of the fire district, a village
on the boundaries of the town, and in 1834, a city by now
called Brooklyn, although at this point it occupied only one
square mile. Brooklyn's much slower political development,
in contrast to that of New York City, which was a formal city
almost from the start, has a religious origin: the newcomers
were of various Protestant denominations and were far more
interested in establishing their own sections and acquiring land
for the construction of their respective churches than they were
in creating a larger community, and they joined politically only
to the extent needed at any given time. It was the temperance
movement of the 1820s that provided the spur toward
cityhood: the village's one square mile had 47 taverns, and
temperance was a subject all the different groups could agree
upon. Afterwards, the city grew in parallel with New York, with
increasing industry, including ship building and port activity,
but it never became a financial center. Henceforth, both New
York and Brooklyn expanded greatly, rolling over every town
and village in their respective domains of Manhattan Island,
being New York County, and Kings County, but New York's
expansion did not stop at the water's edge.
The pre-New York City stories of the remaining three bor-
oughs are very different from those of the first two, each re-
gion being a collection of small villages and towns no one of
which ever dominated over any of the others. One borough
however, formerly Richmond but now called the Borough of
Staten Island, may be said to have an intrinsic island-wide his-
tory of its own:
Its settlements were wiped out three times in the seventeenth
century during murderous fights with the Indians, the worst
of which began in Manhattan when a certain Van Dyke killed
an Indian female who had committed the horrible crime of
eating some peaches from one of his trees. The outraged Indi-
ans swarmed into New Amsterdam where they confined them-
selves to rioting and looting, then swarmed over Staten Island,
and while the island's patroon was barely escaping with his
life, the Governor, Peter Stuyvesant, was down in Delaware
with 600 troops dealing with the "threat" to the colony posed
by peaceful New Sweden.
Staten island was the site of the first European-style peace
conference in the colonies, an attempt by John Adams, Ben-
jamin Franklin, Admiral Howe, and others to head off hostili-
ties between the colonists and the British. It was an island of
sanity during the Draft Riot, when blacks who managed to
escape the rampaging Irish mobs by somehow reaching the
island were carried by horseback, wagon, and carriage over-
land by the white population to the western side, then ferried
to New Jersey and safety. And it was also the site of the first
distillery in the Americas, as well as a hideout of bank robber
Willie Sutton.
The Bronx and Queens are best described in the larger con-
texts of the respective histories of Westchester County and Long
Island from whence they come. Westchester County was one
of the original counties set up when the English established
the county system in 1683, and the Bronx was eventually
formed at its southern-most end from four townships and parts
of two others, tacked on to New York in two stages. Although
the annexation of lower Westchester was considered as early
as 1864, no action was taken until the '70s. The section west
of the Bronx River, now known as the West Bronx, joined New
York on January 1, 1874, in the aftermath of a referendum the
previous year in which the residents of the towns of Morrisania,
West Farms, and Kingsbridge accepted the city's bid. The East
Bronx, east of the river obviously, and consisting of Westchester
township and parts of Eastchester and Pelham, joined on July
1, 1895. Upon attachment to New York, the sections became
known as the Annexed Districts and the state legislature sev-
ered them from Westchester County, merging them with New
York County. In 1898, when the charter of Greater New York
took effect, they became the Borough of the Bronx.
Long Island had been divided into three counties, Kings,
Queens, and Suffolk. While the western Queens townships of
Jamaica and Newtown agreed to join New York, as did the city
of Long Island City which had incorporated in 1870, the three
townships at Queens' eastern end—Hempstead, North
Hempstead, and Oyster Bay—opted out of the arrangement,
as did the town of Flushing. Flushing was nevertheless hauled
into the city, like it or not, but the state severed the others
from Queens, forming them into a newly created Nassau
County.
It all came together on January 1, 1898. What had begun a
few years earlier as an attempt to unite New York and Brook-
lyn ended up as a unification of four counties. Kings County
and the portion of Queens County not now in Nassau became,
from the point of view of the city government, the Boroughs
of Brooklyn and Queens. Richmond County became the Bor-
ough of Richmond, later renamed the Borough of Staten Is-
land, and two Boroughs were formed from New York County:
Manhattan and the Bronx. In 1914, the state legislature sepa-
rated the Bronx from New York County, creating Bronx County,
and today the five city boroughs coincide geographically with
the five state counties.
II: Being a New Yorker is Never Having to Say
You're Sorry
A relatively recent tourism campaign has given New York the
idiotic name of "the Big Apple" (1), but the natives call the
town Gotham, a name first used in Salmagundi, a series of
essays by Washington Irving and others satirizing the behav-
ior of nutty New Yorkers. The reference is to a thirteenth cen-
tury King John who wanted to buy some land in the town of
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Page 176 Paper Money Whole No. 185
Gotham, but the peasants didn't want him to show up be-
cause they'd have to serf the estate, so they conspired to con-
vince the king that he didn't want to live there by acting like a
bunch of idiots, doing things like spending hours raking the
moon's reflection off the lake, and so on. The city's current
reputation as an asylum for the insane, as well as the oppressed,
is a tad exaggerated, but Gotham it shall always be: In the
1960s, the skinned, headless body of a 450-pound gorilla was
found smack in the middle of a street in the South Bronx. The
police never did find out exactly what the animal was doing
there, but a few blocks away was a hot dog factory, long since
closed.
III: The Obsolete Notes from Greater New York
The Borough of Manhattan
Notes are known only from New York City, and it's a matter of
some mystery to me why no other locations are represented.
Certain villages such as Chelsea and Yorkville were residential
areas north of the city line and conceivably had no businesses,
but what of Harlem, which certainly did: Milton R. Friedberg's
catalogue of postage envelopes (2) illustrates an item by a
Harlem and New York Navigation Company, as an example
Figure 2 is a $1 note from the Manufacturers' and Merchants'
Bank dated December 1, 1859, the best general representa-
tion of the city that I've found so far. Its vignettes of agricul-
ture, industry, and shipping illustrate the nature of New York's
economy at a time just before the Civil War (3).
The Borough of Brooklyn
Notes are known from the cities ofBrooklyn and Williamsburgh.
Williamsburgh was originally part of the Dutch village of
Bostwijck, north of Breukelen. It became the subject of a real
estate promotion in the 1820s, which led to its eventual incor-
poration as a village in 1827, and as a city in 1852. Its only
mayor, Abraham J. Berry, suggested that it be absorbed by
Brooklyn. When consolidation took place in 1855, the "h"
was dropped and the now ex-city became just another Brook-
lyn neighborhood, but judging by the existing notes, it seems
to have gone unnoticed that the spelling had changed and that
the city had vanished from the planet.
Figure 3 is a note from the Nassau Bank of Brooklyn dated
October 1, 1863. It shows a scene of the Fulton Street railway
station at the site of the Fulton Ferry dock. One of the tiny
boats in the East River behind is the two-masted ferry steam-
ing toward New York in the distance, but it's probably invis-
ible in the reproduction.
Figure 4, from Williamsburgh, shows an unissued 10-cent
note from Rudolph Wenzlik's Lagerbier Saloon dated 186_;
that is, after the city formally ceased to exist. Given both the
Figure 2: Borough of Manhattan: New York City, Manufacturers' and Merchants' Bank, $1, December 1, 1859,
printed by American Bank Note Company
X`s
szus.,u• Pres! _
Figure 3: Borough of Brooklyn: [City of] Brooklyn, Nassau Bank of Brooklyn, $1, October 1, 1863, printed by
American Bank Note Company.
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Paper Money Whole No. 185 Page 177
Figure 4: Borough of Brooklyn: Williamsburgh, Rudolph Wenzlik's Lagerbier Saloon, 10 cents, 186_
(unissued), printed by Henry Siebert and Brothers. The note is dated after the city formally ceased to exist.
nature of Rudolph's business and the redemption clause on
the note, its a reasonable assumption that no issued examples
survive.
The Borough of Queens
Notes are known from Flushing and Jamaica. Both settlements
were initiated by English colonists operating under Dutch pat-
ems. Under the English government they became towns, and
the villages of the same names were eventually incorporated
within the town boundaries. Flushing struck a major blow for
religious freedom in the seventeenth century and hasn't been
heard from since. Peter Stuyvesant hated the Quakers and typi-
cally had them thrown into prison and tortured. When it was
discovered that a group of them were meeting secretly in Flush-
ing at the homes of Henry Townsend and John Bowne, he had
the homeowners arrested. The Dutch and non-Quaker English
residents of Flushing objected to all this mistreatment on the
grounds that the Flushing Charter of 1645 had declared that
settlers were to have "liberty of conscience, according to the
custom and manner of Holland, without molestation or dis-
turbance." On December 27, 1657, thirty-one of them drew
up a protest addressed to the Governor. The sheriff of Flush-
ing, upon delivery of the complaint, was himself arrested, as
was the town clerk. Ultimately the Quakers got word to the
Directors of the Company who ordered Stuyvesant to lay off.
A stamp commemorating the Flushing Remonstrance was is-
sued in 1957, but a bill authorizing a commemorative half
dollar was vetoed by President Eisenhower and there were no
further commemorative coins issued until 1982.
Jamaica quickly became the county seat of Queens County
and was a place of British occupation during the Revolution-
ary War. Today, it is the site of St. John's University.
Flushing is represented, Figure 5, by a 121/2-cent note of store
owner J. Blake (or I. Blake) dated March 13, 1838. The abbre-
viation of Blake's first name is not clear but might be short for
Jeremiah. The note was part of Robert Vlack's extensive Hard
Times Era holdings for many years, but when I told Bob that
Flushing was my home town, incredibly, he retrieved it from
his collection and sold it to me, and what do you say to that?
Jamaica is represented, Figure 6, by a note from the wholly
fictitious Bank of Jamaica. The note is an alteration of an 1861
issue of the Southern Bank of Georgia, Bainbridge. No prop-
erly issued obsoletes from Jamaica are known.
The Borough of Staten Island
Notes are known from North Shore and Port Richmond. North
Shore was a post office on the North Shore—where else?—not
a village or town, in which case the location as given on the
known note is non-specific, being more like a mailing address
than anything else. It was probably a sufficient identification
at the time the note was circulating. The surrounding area was
called Factoryville and the site would be in West Brighton
today.
The village of Port Richmond got its name in the mid-1800s
but was not formally incorporated until 1866. As Decker's
Ferry, it was the site of an attack by American forces under
General John Sullivan, who destroyed thirty-five tons of hay
and burned a barn in August of 1777. I've always been puzzled
irnEl.;‘1?. HALF CEN'A' N
le 6.442.--/fgf
Figure 5: Borough of Queens: Flushing, J. Blake, 121/2 cents, March 13, 1838, pt nter
unknown but probably I. Neale, New York.
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Page 1 78
Paper Money Whole No. 185
Figure 6: Borough of Queens: Jamaica, Bank of Jamaica (fictitious), 510, January 10, 1861 (printed), an alter-
ation of a note from the Southern Bank of Georgia, Bainbridge, counterfeiter unknown.
7: Borough of Staten Island: North Shore, C.M. Pine and Company, 10 cents, July 1, 1862, printed by
Cook and Snedeker. The Chinese merchant was drawn by Whitney Jocelyn.
why my note from the village has a whaling scene on it, never
having associated the whaling industry with New York, but
Port Richmond was the site of a whale oil processing plant
from 1838 until the plant burned down in 1842, and the note
is dated 1840.
North Shore is represented, Figure 7, by a 10-cent note from
C. M. Pine and Company dated July 1, 1862. The Chinese figure
is an unusual design for the New York area. The only other
example that I know of appears on the Brooklyn scrip issued
by Reese, an importer of Young Hyson tea.
Port Richmond is represented, Figure 8, by a $2 note from
the Staten Island Bank dated November 28, 1840. The princi-
pal vignette is a stock design of a seated woman found on
other notes of the state and perhaps elsewhere; the tiny en-
graving between the signatures is the whaling scene, which
I've seen nowhere else. There is no connection between the
bank and the later Staten Island National Bank in the same
local.
The Borough of the Bronx
Notes are known from the towns ofMorrisania and Westchester.
Morrisania, in the first Annexed District, was one of twenty-
one townships created in Westchester County by the state leg-
islature in 1788. It was originally the sparsely inhabited estate
of Lewis Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence,
who had his property incorporated as a town for purposes of
enticing the federal government to establish its capital there,
but the effort failed. The capital moved from New York to Phila-
delphia, and the town was disestablished in early 1791 and
attached to the town of Westchester at a time when the latter
occupied both sides of the Bronx River. It was formally rein-
corporated as a town by an act of the legislature on December
7, 1855.
Westchester originally spanned lower Westchester County
from west to east and was made even larger by the acquisition
of Morrisania. But the portion west of the Bronx River was
formed into the town of West Farms in 1846, out of which the
second incarnation of Morrisania was carved, so that well be-
fore its acquisition by the city, it had been reduced to the sec-
tion now within the East Bronx. The annexation referendum
was actually defeated, by literally one vote, which result was
of course ignored, and the town was dragged against its collec-
tive will into New York. By contrast, the voting residents of
the city of Mount Vernon defeated annexation by a margin
sufficiently large enough that Tammany Hall didn't dare make
the grab, a shame from the New York City collector's point of
view since scrip exists from this city, issued while it was still a
village.
The note from the Morrisania Bank, Figure 9, has been cata-
logued by Haxby as a fantasy, but I'm not so sure I agree. Cer-
Paper Money Whole No. 185 Page 179
tfitirel)
isirijogiczer'17-"'
/YD .
01101111i§: /77(//////7////:.?e;!
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41 - 1 , V16/AK PORT RICIIXOND _ /
77-77t-e- (/(4/A tr/fi_P• •
____;;ALittelittiliklaWAVIAMtps;
Figure 8: Borough of Staten Island: Port Richmond, Staten Island Bank, $2, November 28, 1840, printed
by Rawdon, Wright and Hatch.
Figure 9: Borough of the Bronx: Morrisania, Morrisania Bank, $1 proof, 185_, printed by W.L. Ormsby.
Figure 10: Borough of the Bronx: Westchester, Browne Brothers, 25 cents, July 15, 1862,
printer unknown but possibly Ferdinand Mayer, New York.
tainly no bank of this name was ever incorporated in New
York State, but the existing printer's proofs show a proper state
seal at left and a copyright registration statement (4) at lower
right, which raises some questions. Would a security printer
have created such an elaborate engraving, limit himself to what
appears to be four specimens—two each of two variants— and
dare the wrath of the state by entering onto the plate the seal
and statement, just for his own amusement? And one can't
help but notice that the date on the note, 185_, corresponds
to the date of the reincorporation of the town. It is far more
likely that the proofs, rather than being fantasies, were pro-
duced for a proposed legitimate bank that never got off the
Page 180 Paper Money Whole No. 185
ground. Proving this conjecture, of course, is a lot more difficult.
The note's design was used one other time, on an issue of the
so-called Security Bank, about which I have no opinion.
Westchester is represented by a 25-cent note from the Bowne
Brothers, Figure 10, issued on July 15, 1862. Jenkins refers to a
Sydney B. Bowne, a merchant engaged in the sloop trade be-
tween Westchester and New York, who opened a general store
"after the restoration of peace"—that is, at the end of the War
of 1812. Jenkins also writes that the firm was one of only three
or four in the town but doesn't say when. Jenkins provides a
photo of the store as it looked in 1903, but I haven't repro-
duced it since the accompanying text states that its appearance
had been "rejuvenated almost beyond recognition" from its
earlier version and didn't resemble the Civil War era store at
all. Clearly seen in the photo on a side of the building is an
old sign reading "S. Bowne('s?)" in white, overlapping "...ietor"
(for Proprietor) in black. My best guess is that Sydney opened
his store ca. 1815-1820 or so and his sons, one named Thom-
as, later took it over, retaining the original sign.
The nine locations for which obsolete notes are known in-
clude three cities, two towns, three villages, and a post office.
Both bank notes and scrip are known from each of the cities as
one might expect. One village and one of the towns are repre-
sented only by bank notes, a second village by a home brew.
The scrip from the remaining town and village, and that from
the post office, are random survivors out of what were prob-
ably a large number of issues from the many towns, towns
within towns, villages, and whatever that existed at one time
or another during the period of interest. One can always hope
that notes from currently unrepresented localities might yet
surface from time to time. Any and all that crawl out of the
woodwork should be turned-in to the redemption center at
the address found in this journal's classifieds. The center also
accepts notes from locations already known.
Any new findings will be shared with the community.
Both the North Shore and Jamaica notes shown here are the prop-
erty of the Smithsonian Institution. The North Shore note could not
be located for this article, and the photocopy used was made many
years ago. The photocopy of the Jamaica note was provided by Rich-
ard Doty.
ENDNOTES
(1) "There are many apples on the tree, but when you perform in
New York, you play the Big Apple"—an expression used by trav-
eling bands of the 1920s and '30s.
(2) PAPER MONEY, January/February 1994, p. 2.
(3 ) With the addition of "Jr.", the signature of the cashier, A. Masterton,
appears on the note from the New York County Bank of June 4,
1858 that I illustrated in "Seal of the City of New York," PAPER
MONEY, September/October 1995, p. 191. In the year and a half
between the two note issues, the gentleman evidently changed
jobs and lost his father.
At the end of the article on the city's seal I mentioned that I
had never looked at it once. Apparently I should have, as the City
Council changed the date from 1664 to 1625 in 1977. The coun-
cil also passed a law making the unauthorized use of the seal a
crime. Oops.
(4) "Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1853 by the
Morisiania [sic! Bank in the Clerks Office of the District Court of
the Southern District of New York" followed by "Eng'd by W L
Ormsby" and "Secured by application for Patent."
REFERENCES
Collins, F.L. (1946). Money town. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons .
Ellis, E.R. (1966). The epic of New York City. New York: Old Town
Books.
Jenkins, S. (1912). The story of the Bronx. New York: G.P. Putnam's
Sons.
Lyman, S.E. (1964). The story of New York. New York: Crown Pub-
lishers.
Smith, D.V. (1970). Staten Island. Philadelphia: Chilton Book Com-
pany.
Weld, R.F. (1938). Brooklyn village. New York: Columbia University
Press.
THE BASICS
by BOB COCI IRAN
WHAT IS A PROOF?
Proof coins and paper money proofs have little or nothing in
common. Proof coins are struck specifically for collectors.
Proofs of images intended for paper money, or any other se-
curity instrument, are printed in stages of engraved develop-
ment, and ultimately when the engraving has been completed.
Proof impressions are made or "pulled," so the engraver can
see how the subject is progressing. It is necessary to make cer-
tain that lines are not engraved too deep or too shallow, too
wide or too fine. Proof impressions "pulled" in stages are called
progressive proofs. Soft paper, most often India paper, is the
best surface to receive every portion of the inked plate. Since
security paper proofs are printed for the engraver's use and
not for collectors, most are scarce, many are extremely rare
and some unique.
WHAT IS A
SPECIMEN?
Specimen notes are non-negotiable. They are most often made
and sent to central banks so there is something against which
a dubious note can be compared. Specimen notes are printed
on the same paper as the issued note, or, at times, on heavier
stock; at times they are uniface. "Specimen" is either printed
on the note or perforated in the paper. Most often a series of
zeroes (00000000), or "12345678" are used in place of regu-
lar serial numbers.
Some specimen notes from countries other than the U.S.
are relatively common. On occasion current or obsolete notes
from other countries, intended for circulation, are stamped or
perforated specimen. These are given to dignitaries or sold to
collectors by central banks.
1918 1958
This portrait of Alfonse Mucha was engraved
and signed by Tindra Schmidt (1897 - 1984). It
commemorated the 40th anniversary of Mucha's
first stamps for the republic in 1918.
)CESKOSLOVENSKE POSTOVNi ZNAMK -7
/CTYlkICET LET
Paper Money Whole No. 185 Page 18 1
&4/7ohonse i/Ittcha
Art Nowa u and raper Vioney Artist
"I do not want to be an artist if it should mean creating art for art's sake.... The
conception of modern art as subject to passing fashion is an insult to art. Art is
every bit as eternal as man's progress, for it is the function of art to light man on
his way" (Mucha 1974, 22).
by GENE HESSLER
O
NE could say the world is divided
into two groups: those who rec-
ognize the style of Alfonse Mucha
and those who recognize the style but can't
name the artist. This artist is the creator of
those beautiful, often sensuous ladies in
flowing gowns with overlapping folds.
Mucha was influenced by teachers Hans
Makart (1840-1884), Carlos Schwabe
(1866-1926) and perhaps Jules Joseph
Lefebvre (1836-1912). 1 When Mucha be-
came the toast of Paris and was in demand
throughout the world, including the
United States, his art was imitated, and his
art was—Art Nouveau.
"At the time he had electrified Paris—
and, indeed, the whole of France—with his
wonderful work, notably his poster of
Gistnonda [for Sarah Bernhardt]. His name
was on every wall and in every mouth. He
was ... lionized wherever he chanced to
go" (Reade 5). Just as an understudy re-
places the star of the show and becomes
an overnight success, Alfonse Mucha had
been engaged when the "regular" artist was
unavailable.
The world could not get enough of
Mucha's images. His art appeared on calendars, posters, ad-
vertisements for toothpaste, champagne, chocolates and
Nestle's Food for Infants, and ultimately bank notes and post-
age stamps. Because of his commercial success, primarily from
his posters that celebrated the legendary actress Sarah
Bernhardt, some purists refused to accept his illustrations as
art. Alfonse Mucha also designed jewelry, some specifically for
the French actress.
Alfons—the world adopted the French spelling of
Alphonse—Mucha was born on 24 July 1860 in IvanC ice, in
Southern Moravia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
As a boy he received a choral scholarship to St. Peter's Church
in Brno, now in the Czech Republic. Mucha learned to play
the violin and the guitar, and retained his love of music
throughout his life. It could easily be said that there is music
in his art, the music of Claude Debussy (1862-1918) and
Frederick Delius (1862-1934); both were composing in Paris
at the time Mucha was there. Mucha and Delius were friends,
and the artist probably was acquainted with Debussy.
In his reminiscences Mucha would
write: "For me the notions of painting,
going to church and music are so closely
knit that I often cannot decide whether I
like church for the music, or music for its
place in the mystery which it accompa-
nies" (Mucha 1966, 13).
At 15, after his education at the Slav
Gymnasium in Brno, the young artist went
to Usti-Nad-Orlici where he met and
learned from Johann Umlaut - (1825-
1916), a painter in the Baroque tradition.
In 1882 Mucha went to Vienna to paint
scenery for the Ring Theater, which was
subsequently destroyed by fire. Stranded,
the young artist made his way to klikulov
(then Nikolsburg) on the Moravian bor-
der. With his last Austrian gulden he took
a room at the Hotel zum LOwen. He placed
one of his female drawings in a local book-
shop. On the drawing he wrote "Hotel
zum LOwen—five Florins." This was inter-
preted as a solicitation by a prostitute and
created considerable outrage. The public-
ity turned to profit for Mucha; he remained
there for two years by selling his drawings
(Reade 7).
The incident at Mikulov put Mucha in touch with Count
Karl Khuen-Belasi. who commissioned the artist to decorate
his country house at Emmahof. The frescoes of medieval
knights and ladies at Emmahof, now destroyed, "are said to
have shown the influence of Delacroix, Makart and Dore "
(Mucha 1974, 37). The first formal training for Mucha came
when he went to the Munich Academy in 1883 with Count
Karl as his patron. There, his teacher was Ludwig von LOfftz
(1845-1910), whose folkloristic detail influenced the young
Slay. In early 1889 Mucha went to Paris to study under Lefebvre
at the Academie Julian. Discouraged, he returned to work for
his patron at Emmahof. In the fall of that year Mucha returned
to Paris to study at the more comfortable Academie Colarossi.
The art student was forced to withdraw when his patron com-
mitted suicide.
Now on his own, Mucha moved to a small room in
Montpamasse. He continued to send drawings to Prague, where
his drawings were published in a growing number of publica-
tions. At times it was necessary to draw on wood for wood
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Page 182 Paper Money Whole No. 185
engraving illustrations and on stone for lithographic repro-
ductions.
Moderate success allowed Mucha to move to an authentic
studio just across the avenue where he had been living. Al-
though he lived in Paris, the artist remained a champion for
Czech nationalism all his life. Extremely sympathetic, he made
the "acquaintance of any Slav he saw" (Reade 11). He associ-
ated with the Parisian artists including Auguste Rodin (1840-
1917) and Paul Gauguin (1848-1903). Mucha helped Gauguin
with his first exhibition. Nevertheless, the Art Nouveau style
of Alfonse Mucha had little in common with the impression-
ists and realists in Paris. He did, however, join his fellow art-
ists and flirt with the occult sciences even though he practiced
Catholicism all his life.
In 1898 Mucha shared a studio with Anglo-American artist
James Whistler (1834-1903), where they taught other artists.
This relationship was short-lived. Nevertheless, Whistler deco-
rated his personal studio with Mucha drawings. When asked
why, Whistler replied: "So that I can show fools like you what
it means to be able to draw" (Mucha 1974, 60). "No student
was too young or inexperienced to invade [Mucha's] studio
and ask for his always kindly criticism; no struggling artist too
obscure to apply for his always good advice" (Reade 5). Mucha,
the proclaimed high priest of Art Nouveau, kept his Paris stu-
dio until 1910, when he returned to Zbirov in Bohemia, now
part of the Czech Republic.
Alfonse Mucha was a dominant artist at the 1900 World
Exposition in Paris. He created posters for Austria, the city of
Paris and individual firms represented at the Exposition; he
also designed sculpture. Afterward his Art Nouveau was often
identified as "Le Style Mucha." The artist received several med-
als for his contributions to the Exposition.
It was probably about this time that Mucha met Alberto
Santos-Dumont (1873-1932). 2 Although he declined voyages
aloft in balloons, the artist was fascinated with aeronautics
and therefore became friends with the Brazilian airship pio-
neer, who was the first to put a flying machine in the air in
Europe.
It was 1903 when Mucha met Maria Chytilova, a 20-year-
old Bohemian art student; he and Maru§ka, as he would call
her, were married on 10 June 1906. The year 1903 was also
the year the artist met the Baroness Rothschild, who suggested
that Mucha go to America, and arranged for his first commis-
sion there—a portrait of Mrs. Wismann. Sarah Bernhardt rein-
forced this suggestion to visit America.
Alfonse Mucha sailed to New York in 1904, the first of six
trips he would make to the U.S.; the last was 1913. In addition
to mention on the front and back pages of the 3 April 1904
issue, The New York Daily News added a color supplement of
his work. The headline proclaimed: "Mucha the life and work
of the greatest decorative artist in the world." The American
press described his elegant female figures as the "Mucha
Woman." The visiting artist rented a studio at 58 W. 57th Street,
just off 5th Avenue.
It was during a visit to the U.S. in 1905 when Mucha met
millionaire Charles R. Crane, whose daughter, Josephine,
would have her image immortalized on a Czech bank note.
The two men had met by chance, and their friendship was
renewed during a visit in 1909. At that time Mr. Crane was
having a house built for his eldest daughter, Josephine. The
architect would create a specific place in the house for this
painting which was to be called Slavic. It would be a develop-
Pour ren,elyn •ments et adhesions Loneernaill. is FRANCE s'adress u ATTAIT.tere dt, Cummer“
1.491191554mA General do Gouvernemeut Frau,;ais 101. Rue de Gremelie, PARIS, it au Comae
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IMPORTANCE DE L•EXPOSITION
PHILADELPHIE 1876 _ 55 Htt.11.1, C616460 1890 _ 240 TTECTAAt
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This poster (105x77 cm) was created for the 1904 St. Louis Exhibition.
(Courtesy of the St. Louis Public Library)
The Prague Insurance poster, with Slavia, to honor the
life of Alfonse Mocha.
ment of a poster the artist had created for the Prague Insur-
ance Company in 1907. Charles R.Crane empathized with
Mucha in his devotion to and obsession with the history of
CESKOSISICO
ALFONS MUCHAfi 1860-1939
10ESKOSLOYENSKO
60 ALFONS MUCHA_h AIL^011 1860-1912
ESKOSLOVENSKO
ALFONS MUCHA
Kry 1860-1939
TAKIMACA[AA,tlint
Paper Money Whole No. 185 Page 183
Page one of the New York Daily News color supplement.
(ESKOSLOVENSK0
2 ks ALFONS MUCHA 1860-193940 a■reiN A AM, "' " A,L1.10PAIMKAAIr )90,
Four examples of Mucha art were engraved as postage stamps by I. 8vengsbir (1921-1983), they are: Painting„
306, S(cott); Music, 606, S; Dance, 1K, S; and Two Documents Decoratifs, 2K, S.
Page 184
Paper Money , Whole No. 185
Alpkore. Maeia /vVicl•-■
MUCHA rpn5TER pn5TcaeRb5
17\1 FULL CnE__,(R
24 beady-40-Mnil Coed>
The cover of Mucha Poster Postcards.
the Slays. Ultimately he would provide the funds for Alfonse
Mucha to create his monumental Slav Epic-20 vast panels in
tempera and oil. Crane's daughter Frances married Jan
Masaryk, son of T.G. Masaryk (1850-1937) philosopher and
Czechoslovakia's first president.
4 titta., i(g.? '4AaM,Q..< ,TWaht,
The back of the 10 K., P8
The back of the 100 K., P 11. (Courtesy of Richard Piertnattei)
Paper Money Whole No. 185 Page 185
In 1918, when World War I came to an end, Alfonse Mucha
was asked to design bank notes and postage stamps for the
newly-created Republic of Czechoslovakia, Mucha's homeland.
Out of devotion to his native land, Mucha asked for no com-
pensation for his designs.
The 10 K(orun), P8; 20 K., P9; 100 K., P11; and 500 K., P12
were designed by Alfonse Mucha. The heads on the back of
the 10 K. are those of Jaroslava, Mucha's first daughter. Some
say that the heads on the hack of the 100 K. are those of the
artist's wife, Maru§ka. Soon after the locally-printed100 and
500 Korun notes were issued, both were counterfeited. The
notes were withdrawn and American Bank Note Company
(ABNCo) in New York City was asked to create plates for more
sophisticated notes as quickly as possible. Ultimately ABNCo
prepared an entire series of notes, i.e., 100, 500, 1000 and
5000 K.
The new 100 K. note, P15, was designed by Alfonse Mucha
and included his lovely Slavin on the face. This beautiful im-
age, based on the likeness of Josephine Crane, was engraved
by the premiere engraver at ABNCo, Robert Savage (1868-
1943). The back of the note shows the St. Charles Bridge, one
of the famous landmarks in Prague.
As this note circulated there was an exhibit of selections of
Mucha's Slav Epic at the Brooklyn Museum. It was the policy
to charge admission for special exhibits. However, Mucha in-
sisted that admission would be free-600,000 people saw the
exhibit. Edwin Blashfield (1848-1936), the designer of the U.S.
1896 $2 silver certificate, spoke out, unsuccessfully, in an at-
tempt to have the exhibit period extended in the linited States.
One of Mucha's paintings came to the U.S. permanently. In
1887 an altar piece of Sts. Cyril and Methodius went to the
Church of St. John of Nepomuk in Pisek, ND.
This 100 K. note circulated from 1920 to 1939 and is now
extremely scarce in nice condition. Few collectors know the
American connection with this beautiful note. Nevertheless, it
is a note that many collectors want simply because it is an
example of good design and engraving.
Less than ten authentic 500 K., P12 notes are known. It was
superbly counterfeited by Dr. Julius
Meczarosz, a university professor in
Budapest; he had 60,000 pieces printed
in Weitzeldorf, Austria. At the time 500
K. equaled about $16. Counterfeits have
a printed imitation watermark. They also
"lack the haCek accent mark (resembling
a small 'v') over the letter 'C' of the text
'C.187, – at the top on the back (Krause
398). Most collectors will happily accept
a counterfeit of this note, if one can be
found.
The new 500 K., P19, prepared at
ABNCo, was not issued until 1923. How-
ever, a 1000 K., P13A and 5000 K., P14,
also prepared at ABNCo, preceded it in
1919. In 1931 a new 50 K., P23 was is-
sued; it circulated until
1944. This note was de-
signed by the aging
Alfonse Mucha. The ma-
ture image of his daughter,
Jaroslava, graces this note.
The artist also designed a
1 K. for the first issue in
1919. This unissued design
is illustrated in Mucha
(1966).
Mucha also designed 50
and 1000 leva notes for
Bulgaria, and a 10 dinara
for Yugoslavia; all \ vent
unissued. The 1000 leva
and 10 dinara notes are il-
lustrated in Mucha (1980).
The State Printing
Office, where Czech paper
money would be engraved
and printed, opened in
1928. Alphonse Mucha
designed the figures above
the entrance. A head of Liberty with her symbolic Liberty Cap
was placed in the center. During the German occupation the
liberty cap was forcibly removed. As a reminder, the symbol
of freedom was never replaced.
Anticipating the end of the war and the establishment of a
republic, the first stamp was designed in May 1918, engraved
Page 186
Paper Money Whole No. 185
It- • Atiy..
NATO STATOVKA VYDANA PQt1ttE Z N Ak.PLA
ti7 The face of an authentic 500 K., P12.
(Courtesy of Richard Piermattei)
The face of the counterfeit 500 K.,
P12, lacks the haek ("v") above the
"C" in "C187" at the top.
The back of an authentic 500 K., P12.
The female appears to represent
laroslava, the artist's daughter. (Cour-
tesy of Richard Piermattei)
Paper Money Whole No. 185 Page 187
This essai for the back of the 100 K is
similar to the 500 K.
This essai for the lace of the 100 K is similar to the 500 K.
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