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2 Dollars Mechanics Savings and Loan Association
| Issuer | Mechanics Savings & Loan Association |
|---|---|
| Year | 1862 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Dollar |
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| Obverse description | Printed in orange-red letterpress on white paper, the obverse carries bold ornate guilloche underprint numerals '2' repeated across the field as the primary decorative underprint. The institution name 'MECHANICS Savings & Loan Association.' appears in bold letterpress at the top, below which the date 'Savannah, May 31st, 1862' is set in cursive script, followed by body text certifying a two-dollar deposit bearing four per cent interest payable to bearer in Treasury Notes. The denomination 'TWO DOLLARS' is repeated in large vertical letterpress along both the left and right borders, with a manuscript presidential signature in blue ink at the lower centre. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse is printed on repurposed pre-printed stock originally intended for another institution's notes, bearing engraved vignettes of a seated female figure and a barrel in a landscape setting. Partial legends reading 'THE STATE OF', 'FIVE DOLLARS', and fragmentary stockholder liability text appear twice across the width of the sheet, consistent with wartime Confederate scrip production practices of reusing available printed materials. |
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| Comments |
Mechanics Savings & Loan Association was one of dozens of Southern mutual savings institutions that resorted to issuing their own scrip when specie vanished from circulation in the early Confederate war years. By 1862, small-denomination coin had effectively disappeared from Georgia commerce, hoarded the moment hostilities made its future value uncertain. Institutions like this one stepped into that vacuum not as banks of issue in any formal sense, but out of sheer transactional necessity.
Savannah-printed scrip of this period varies enormously in quality and survival rate. Much was redeemed quickly and destroyed; the rest was often lost to the city's considerable wartime disruption, including Sherman's occupation in December 1864.