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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;gsalexan, post: 2819986, member: 24274&quot;]Found a couple nice checks at the ANA Denver show last week. Also some very interesting promissory notes, which look a lot like checks but were more like short term loans. One in particular intrigued me -- it was issued in Bangor on Feb. 19, 1848. But the notation on the left side says: &quot;First day June / Backersville (?) / California.&quot; Presumably this is when and where the note would be paid off. There is no Backersville that I could find by Googling and it&#039;s not Bakersfield or Vacaville, which didn&#039;t yet exist. The date is really interesting. Gold was discovered at Sutter&#039;s Mill in January of 1848, but that news didn&#039;t hit the papers until March. Did the loan recipient, Francis D. Philbrook, get wind of it? Was he already in California or did he decide to go there from Bangor? It&#039;s a great mystery and I welcome other guesses! The back is blank, so no clues there.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]661893[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]661894[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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