1 Dollar Sanford Bank - Maine

Sanford, Maine was a textile mill town, and local bank notes like this one circulated primarily among mill workers and the merchants who depended on their wages. Toppan, Carpenter, Casilear & Co. was one of the dominant American security printers of the mid-nineteenth century, eventually absorbed into the American Bank Note Company in 1858 — meaning this note was almost certainly produced under the ABNCo umbrella despite retaining the older firm credit in the plate.

Maine's free banking era produced hundreds of small-town institutions with thin capitalization, and the Sanford Bank was no exception. Notes from minor Maine issuers were routinely discounted by Boston exchange brokers, sometimes by two to three cents on the dollar, depending on the bank's reputation that week.