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2 Dollars South Carolina Rail Road
| Issuer | South Carolina Rail Road Company |
|---|---|
| Year | 1840-1870 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 185 × 78 mm |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | TWO Office of the South Carolina Rail Road CHARLESTON S.C. _______18___ Receivable as TWO DOLLAR in all payments to the South Carolina Rail Road Company TWO American Bank Note Co. New York |
| Reverse description | The back is dominated by a large ornate red letterpress overprint of the word TWO in elaborate interlocking serif capitals occupying the lower center of the note, with show-through of the obverse vignettes visible through the thin paper stock. The surrounding field is plain with faint ghost impressions of the face design visible in green. |
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| Comments |
The South Carolina Rail Road Company was one of the earliest American railroads to issue its own scrip — not unusual for antebellum transportation companies, which routinely substituted private paper for hard currency in wage payments and small commercial transactions across their operating territories. Corporate scrip of this type occupied a legal grey zone: broadly tolerated but never formally recognized as currency, and subject to sudden refusal by merchants when the issuing company's solvency came into question.
The thirty-year date range reflects either a long print run from a single ABNCo plate or reissues across multiple decades — distinguishing between the two requires examining serial number sequences and any dated signatures, where present.