19th century intaglio checks

Much appreciated KatyDid. Love the fairy card! If you read through some of krispy's earlier links you'll note that "Ferdinand Gast, son of August Gast, President, worked in the lithographic business from 1888-1892." This looks like a litho to me.

 

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It is a chromolitho, and when I did some research on Ferdinand, it turns out he was also a bit of an artist, so I wonder if this was his work.

I also do genealogy work, and have created a family tree for the Gasts on Ancestry.com. Seems August came to the US from Germany in 1848, through New Orleans. He wound up in St. Louis and was affiliated with what seems to be a nephew who had a brewery, and for whom Ferdinand wound up working.

August had three wives! And many children, Ferdinand being the youngest. August lived from 1819 to 1891. He must have had quite a life indeed.

 

Also, here's a Google Book view of "The Book of St. Louisans" where there is more info on the Gast family: http://bit.ly/ajNvVa

 

It's like an episode of "The History Detectives." If you find anything else related to August Gast's bank note business please don't hesitate to post. Thanks!

 

Will do, thanks!

 

The art work on those are superb!!

 

Today I picked up an interesting addition for this thread -- it's another engraved check with a great vignette of a steamboat leaving the harbor. The check was printed by Western Bank Note & Engraving in Chicago. What makes this one interesting is that it was self-issued to CC Cheney, president of Western Bank Note, with a penned address of St. Louis Bank Note Co. I'll be doing a little more research on this one!

 

Thanks for sharing this one

That a lost art today your check.now we just feed info in to a CPU and there your ck

 

Very cool! Congrats on a great find!

Darryl

 

Picked up another nice addition yesterday. This one is from the 2nd National Bank of New Haven. Fairly late usage (1906) considering the checks were probably printed in the 1850s or '60s. It has imprints of both American Bank Note Co. and Jocelyn, Draper, Welsh & Co., which only existed from 1854 until 1858 when it joined six other firms to form ABNCo. Great vignettes -- I really like the wharf scene with the sidewheels of an oceangoing steamer visible in the background.

Anybody have a matching National from this bank?

 

Made a great find at an antique show a couple weeks ago. One dealer had a stack of old checks he was selling -- I went through them and found several with banknote engravings. How much? "Three bucks each." SOLD!

Here they are, with close-ups of the vignettes. I particularly like the Grocers and Producers check, not only for the vignette, but for the imprinted revenue stamp. Both are nicely designed -- I've seen the female figure on a bond or paper money somewhere else, but I can't quite place her...yet. The Bank of Commerce check has a great image of the Capitol, back when the dome was a fairly recent addition.

 

The Hagerstown Bank check was also produced by American Bank Note. You rarely find checks with three vignettes. I just learned recently that the female figure was engraved by Stephen Alonzo Schoff. He was one of the more prolific 19th century bank note engravers, who worked for a time with the Bureau of Engraving and freelanced for many of the various bank note firms. There's a great library of his work compiled here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/105581...ephenAlonzoSchoff18181904#5335009551727443826
I highly recommend going through this at your leisure.

 

Ha! I didn't have to look very far. The same vignette shows up in an earlier post on this thread! No wonder she looked familiar.
http://www.cointalk.com/t108341-2/#post895712

 

Nice vignettes, as always gsa. I don't know too many folks collecting checks, that's probably good news for your collection!

Dave

 

Some of Big money paper we can only wish we had!!!
http://www.coinnews.net/2011/09/10/...ust-u-s-and-world-coin-and-currency-auctions/

 

Wow! I'd like to thumb through that book!

 

Time for some new additions. I was lucky enough to win a few nice checks recently on eBay. The first was printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing for the Asst. Treasurer in Charleston, SC, circa 1870, during Reconstruction. Nice vignette that I've seen elsewhere.

The check from the Pennsylvania Co. features two vignettes by the American Bank Note Co. It was drawn for a hefty sum in 1874 -- $7,500! The Pennsylvania Co was set up in 1870 to manage Pennsylvania Railroad's leased lines west of Pittsburgh. It was made out to North Chicago Rolling Mill Co., the biggest steel producer in Chicago at the time. Very likely a large order of rails.

 

Checks - never thought about collecting those. Very cool!

 

Historically, this is one of my favorites. A large $500 sight draft from the Banking House of L.H. Hershfield & Brother, printed by ABNCo, complete with a 2¢ revenue stamp imprint. What make this one interesting is that it's from Helena, Montana, when it was still a territory in 1881. Helena would have been something of a frontier town even then.

 

One of only a handful of known Philippine checks with McKinley.