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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;gsalexan, post: 2207006, member: 24274&quot;]Tonight I&#039;ll post another new addition -- not my oldest stock certificate, but now my oldest railroad stock. The Baltimore &amp; Ohio was one of the earliest railroads in America and was actually organized in 1827. B&amp;O stocks like this exist from the early 1830s, but imho any RR certificate from the 1840s is pretty cool. Consider that, at the time this was issued, gold had not yet been discovered in California, there were no intercontinental railroads, and the Oregon Trail was the only reliable land route to the West. Train wheels, in fact, started out as nothing more than reinforced wagon wheels, and passenger cars were simply adapted stagecoaches, as you can see on the central vignette.</p><p><br /></p><p>This stock also comes with a mystery. It was obviously engraved by a bank note company in the manner of other notes from the era, probably around 1834. But there is no imprint of the bank note firm anywhere on it -- which is very unusual. Even the Coxrail database has no listing of the printer. The vignette of the locomotive &quot;Novelty&quot; is very similar to the one engraved by International Bank Note for later B&amp;O certificates, but that one wasn&#039;t used until the 1880s and has many differences when compared with the earlier vignette. For one, the flag over train&#039;s boiler in the original has lettering that reads &quot;Praesto Et Presso&quot; -- Latin for &quot;Here is the pressure&quot; -- but no text appears on the later flag. Oddly enough this type of locomotive never ran on B&amp;O tracks, it was designed in England and only ran there for a few years.</p><p><br /></p><p>Looks like further research is in order!</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]430716[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]430717[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]430718[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]430719[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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