I splurged a bit to add to my NJ obsolete collection as I didn't see much in the way of counterstamps or tokens. I bought these from Allan Teal at the show on Thursday. As a bonus, I also met Krispy there. He was at the show working one of the tables. It was a pleasure to meet him after all this time. Not much history on these two banks. The Egg Harbor Bank was short-lived. They were incorporated in 1860 and closed only a year later in 1861. For a bank that was around for such a short time, they printed a huge variety of denominations. I have three other notes from this bank...$1, $3, $5, and $10. Still quite a few to go to complete the series though. The State Bank at New Brunswick was originally incorporated in 1812. It closed and was reorganized in 1873, but went out of business for good in 1877. A 66 year run isn't so bad. I like the vignettes on all three notes. Bruce
And the Egg Harbor Bank $1 has an interesting story: The story of the small child vignette was told by Julian Blanchard in The Essay-Proof Journal, Fall 1959, "A stamp dealer pictured on a bank note: P.M. Wolsieffer, Inventor of the Approval Card." Wolsieffer, who later worked with J.W. Haseltine and still later joined the American Numismatic Association, gave an account, stating that Egg Harbor City had been incorporated in 1857: "I was the first baby born there after it was incorporated as a city, and when a bank was established there they had my father supply one of my photographs as a small child for the purpose of putting it on one of the notes."
