I bought a few of these for only 99c plus a tad for postage. They are engravings printed by the America Banknote Company. However I don't really know how many were made. I do know the ABC made a ton of stock papers, stamps, paper money, etc. However these engravings were made on plain currency stock. So I'm wondering if maybe these are modern print by the old plates??
Personally, I urge you to inquire about things like this before buying them. You post a lot of threads on these forums and take a lot of flack for things, but you need to take pause before buying, perhaps buying less on impulse at times, and see where direction can take you before making a purchase. Sure .99¢ is a nominal amount, but it works on another angle and that I will explain in the next lines. Personally, I urge you not to buy these particular items, as sellers tend to hack apart original stock certificates and larger sheets from collections which originally reproduced these vignettes in collected thematic sets, some of which were housed in cloth bound editions and explained with a title or brief background on the vignette. Encouraging sales of these pieces by buying only reinforces their decision to take these sets apart and removes them from their original context. However, it might be helping the value of the remaining complete sets... Here in the Paper Money forum, there are a number of threads on ABNCo that you can glean A LOT of information from, and see a lot of amazing engraved securities art shared by collectors of such things. I encourage you to do some research and put a pause to your buying of these being sold piecemeal. I think you will find it an exciting area of collecting, and a branch of numismatic related material you can expand into, which may excite you to track down examples not trimmed from original sheets and help maintain the originals out there for collectors who enjoy them in that state. I have four such ABNCo Archive Series collections, not the one your eagle vignette likely appeared in (I don't think), but I would like to add to my collection of complete sets of these reproduced series. So I hope you can understand how destroying these sets hurts such chances. Here's a couple of examples, showing how the Archive Series plates were reproduced with thematic imagery. They collect groups of original ABNCo dies that were first used on things like stock certificates, bonds and in some cases banknotes, bank checks, etc. You can see in "The Price of Freedom" plate how your vignette was reproduced, and each year changed the color of ink as well. It's nice to see these vignettes in different colors but that can also be used to help you determine where the image was used or reproduced. If your prints are original , they should have an intaglio printed line quality like paper money feels when it's brand new. The ink lines are slightly raised, and give an embossed feel to the touch. If not, then they may not even be more than a digital copy you bought.
Well the seller said they had a paper money like quality to them, and when asked if they were original period, he said "let's just say they were printed in the last century". However the listing states they were indeed printed by the ABC. While I can see stock certs being hacked apart, some of the prints were used for checks and paper money, which means stuff would of been printed over this. So either these are hacked apart thematic elements, or (what I'm thinking) is that someone got ahold of the old plates and made these, similar to that one CT'er that had a plate and made some prints with it.
Krispy's explanation seem more likely - hacked apart or photocopies - then someone getting plates and printing these themselves, selling them for $0.99.
@Deteco "What you are thinking" is probably wrong. For one, it's not easy to do that, obtain the original dies and go about reproducing them and then reselling them. If you look at the guys here on CT who have tried it, it was a LOT of effort and there are not many guys out there trying to make money off these. Most of the ones you see for sale at 99¢ take a few snips of effort to prepare them for sale. A hand printed one will cost you A WHOLE LOT more than 99¢... Can you understand the cost and labor involved in that to see the point? What's more do you even have these in hand yet? Sure, the Archive Series portfolios were printed in the last century by ABNCo, in the 1980s and 1990s. I don't doubt what you bought were not printed by them, but I am cautioning you about buying them cut from originals for reasons already explained, and at length, for everyones benefit. Know too that EVEN ORIGINAL CANCELLED CHECKS ARE COLLECTIBLE! LOOK THEM UP ON EBAY or HERITAGE for some examples. You REALLY need to study before you click the "buy" button...!
Nashville Tennessee is AMNC was about 2004 they auctioned off wherever engraving plates that were still in building. I think they closed the doors about 1995-1999. If go to Nashville there is a historical sign on there old building as it's downtown Nashville,Not far from music row area.
Sounds neat! If you ever get back there and get a picture of that sign, post it in a Paper Money forum for us.
Ok! If I don't forget to Nashville is about 106 mile north from my home but son goes to Nashville a lot I will try to get him to get the photo.
These are both nice images. I'm familiar with the battlefield scene but not the eagle. Krispy is correct, these were most likely clipped from some other product, I would guess printed in the 1970s to 1990s. But pretty doubtful that they came from an auctioned printing plate. When you say "plain currency stock" is the paper flexible like a dollar bill or is it thicker like cardstock? Is there any printing on the back? This might help identify its original usage.
