Souvenir cards

Welcome from me also, Illini! Your card looks like a private issue. Few of these are engraved so they generally don't hold great value. You definitely should go through this thread if you want an education on souvenir cards. Many resources are listed.

 

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Most of them are inexpensive......but not this one. I saw Krispy had one of these, and I had to have it.



My next addition will be a Bison note to go with this card.

 

The BEP made a goof on this info card! If you jump back to my earlier post (click here: http://www.cointalk.com/t94663-31/#post1309499) you'll see the frontispiece from Lincoln's memorial book. The frame is the same as the one on the most recent souvenir card -- Misc. Die 287 - Ornate Border. The info card says 1869, but the memorial book was issued in 1866, so the border had to be engraved at least several years earlier.

 

I don't think anyone has posted this one yet. It's from the March 2007 ANA show in Charlotte, NC. The standard version was produced in black ink, but this is the rare one. It's a hand-pulled proof, printed on the spider press at the show -- only 100 were done and these were sold for $50 each to lucky winners of a daily lottery. The note shown is the back of the $5 1880 U.S. Note.

 

Steve, here is one of the limited issue cards that compliment the 1890 Treasury Note souvenir cards from 2001 that you've been posting. This one has the backs of the $5 and the $10. I picked up the companion card with the backs of the $50 and $100 in a recent auction. I'll post it when it arrives.

 

Thank for the comments. Now that I take a look at that group of three private issue cards compared to the one for the ANA convention, it's pretty clear to me that on the private issue the all of the text is the same printing as the note itself and isn't quite like the ANA convention issue I have where the image of the note clearly looks (and feels) different than the surrounding text.

 

Exactly -- steel engraved (intaglio) cards have raised ink, which you can feel by lightly running a fingernail over it. It's the same process used to produce currency and more highly valued by collectors.

 

Illini: I'm glad to have you contributing to this thread and enjoying what you are seeing here, and now beginning to collect examples of yourself. I find these cards a very approachable way to study old examples of security engraving that I would never be able to afford in high grades if even available. How else can we get access to high quality examples? They are really a wonderful tool to have available and are brilliant pieces of American monetary and security art. Welcome to the thread! Thanks for bringing some examples too! :thumb:

 

Mine arrived the other day -- beautiful card. What's interesting is to compare it to the prototype that the BEP used to advertise the series. Click here (http://www.cointalk.com/t94663-34/#post1393162) to jump back in the thread to the earlier images. The Lincoln portrait is no longer centered vertically within the oval frame and the red and blue underprint around "150th" is nearly invisible. Looks like they did a little adjusting before the final run.

 

A couple nice cards arrived today: B255 issued in 2001, the companion card to the five/ten backs of the 1890 Treasury Notes -- this one has the 50/100 backs, including the baby watermelon. The fifty is a puzzle in itself; I counted 14 instances of the numeral "50" on it -- see if you can spot them all.

The other card is B286, issued for the August 2007 ANA show. It shows a nice back to the $5 1891 Treasury Note. I somehow missed buying most of the 2006 and '07 cards when they were issued and I'm paying the price now. These were printed in smaller quantities at higher prices and they are much harder to find on the secondary market.

 

Watermellons! Just in time for celebrating the 4th and summertime. Great cards.

 

Here are a couple nice cards that I don't believe have been previously posted: B231, which features the front of the $2 1891 silver certificate, and B214, showing the front of the 1886 $20 silver certificate. These can both be found on eBay periodically in the $10 range.

Incidentally, the Souvenir Card Collectors Society puts out a quarterly journal which features a mail bid auction including hundreds of cards that can often be picked up at very reasonable prices. If anyone has particular cards they are looking for, PM me and I'll let you know if they show up. I'm even willing to place bids!

Greg

 

Great Cards!
Need to get them that way because they are too much $$$ the other

 

I don't recognize that $50 reverse. The 1891 $50 treasury note has a different design, and there wasn't an 1890 "ornate back" for the $50 note. Is this an unused design, or did I miss something?

 

You're right, funkee -- I should have referred to the info card that came with it:
"The back of this never-issued $50 Treasury Note, Misc. Die 3683 was completed in December 1890. Engravers included Edward M. Hall, David M. Cooper, George U. Rose, Jr., William A. Copenhaver, Edwin E. Myers, and William H. Dougal."

Apparently they needed that many engravers to fit all the "50"s into the design.

 

That's not surprising. There are numerous engravers that work on a single note nowadays. This is done for two reasons; so engravers can become very proficient at their particular task, and so that no one engraver is able to create an entire note by themselves.

 

While we're on the subject of unissued notes, here's one I really like -- SCCS catalog #B182. This was the proposed front of the 1899 series $10 silver certificate. Great battleship vignette of the USS Massachusetts, engraved by Marcus Baldwin. You'll notice many of the design elements were carried over to the $10 1901 U.S. Note, but the portraits changed and the battleship became a bison.

This card is one of the BEP's 1994 series "Unfinished Masterpieces" showing five proposed designs that were not issued for various reasons. I will do some scanning this week and post the others.

 

Two more from the Unfinished Masterpieces series from 1994. The info below was culled from the backs of the cards.

B187: Federal Reserve Die #3 was intended for use as the back of a $10 Federal Reserve Note, Series 1915. H.L. Chorlton engraved the vignette "Manufacturing." The figures were engraved by Marcus Baldwin and the remainder of the note was engraved by Edward M. Hall, Joachim C. Benzing and Frank Lamasure.

B184: This $10 Federal Reserve Note was meant to be part of the 1923 series which was never issued. The die was completed as Federal Reserve Die #241. The engraving of Andrew Jackson was done in 1867 by Alfred Sealey from a portrait by Thomas Sully. The remainder of the note was engraved by Edward M. Hall, Frank Lamasure, Edward E. Myers, William B. Wells and H. Preston Dawson.

 

B179: The $20 Federal Reserve Note featured on this card was produce for a 1923 series that was never issued. The portrait of Grover Cleveland was engraved by G.F.C. Smillie in 1914. the lathe border and remainder of the note was engraved by Edward M. Hall, Edward M. Weeks and H. Preston Dawson.

B183: The portrait of Lincoln on this $100 Gold Certificate was engraved by Charles Burt in 1869 (Misc. Die #1029). The rest of the note was completed in 1908 by Edward M. Hall, G.U. Rose, Jr., Robert Pnickau and Edward E. Myers. The gold certificate , Misc. Die #7046, was intended to be used for a 1908 series but was never issued.

 

I must say I'm loving these unissued designs. Where did you pick these up?