Here are 2 national bank notes from the same charter. Where the bank name is on one it is written in 3 lines and on the other one it is in 2. Does anyone know why this is?
Peter Huntoon wrote an article in BNR several months back and explained the design change in the line wording for the banks....but I am unable to recall his explanation. I'll try to find the article again.
I found the article. It was in Paper Money Magazine and not Bank Note Reporter. The article written by Peter Huntoon was about large sized Nationals and not small size.....so I have nothing to add except maybe a bank official suggested the newer design (higher serial number) and it was changed.
I guess that's possible. I'll have to look at my serial number 1's and see if they are 2 line or 3 line from that bank. Thanks!
A quick explanation: During the transition from large to small sized NBNs, the BEP engaged a contractor to provide the black overprint plates. They selected BBS who quickly ran behind providing finished plates creating a serious backlog for BEP who was quickly running out of stocks of the large sized notes for some banks and needed new small notes for redemptions, new banks, etc. As an interim step while waiting for the official BBS plates, temporary plates were made by the GPO for the first printings of small notes, primarily in the charter range of 9xxx to 12xxx (altho not all banks in this range received the temporary variety altho a few outside of the range did). The temporary plates were used for the first printings only and - with a handful of exceptions - subsequent printing of the black overprint was done with BBS plates. Usually, the temporary overprints have larger bank officer sigs, different title layouts and use “unofficial” fonts, esp condensed, not used by BBS. Here’s a link to the Collector’s Universe piece I did last year with a bit more of an explanation, reference to the Paper Money article which is pretty definitive on this topic and my collection of St Louis small varieties, including several banks that used more than one layout for their smalls (the first of these is charter 11989). https://forums.collectors.com/discu...ys-my-set-of-the-70-stl-small-sized-varieties
PS, the note with the lower serial number is the temporary plate, the other was made with the BBS one. The dead giveaway is the much larger officer sigs on note E540.
Wow! Great write up and info!! Thank you very much for that! My great grandfather was one of the signors of those notes which is why I collect them.
