Catalog
2 Shillings
| Issuer | Ipswich manufactory (Land Bank / Manufactory Scheme) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1741 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 2 Shillings |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Letterpress-printed in black ink within a ruled rectangular frame, the face carries a dense block of text setting out the joint-and-several promise to accept the bill as Two Shillings in silver money at six shillings and eight pence per ounce. A small circular vignette enclosing a symbolic illustration occupies the lower-left corner, surrounded by a ring of text. Four manuscript signature lines are arranged at the lower right, with the denomination numeral '2s' repeated in each lower corner and the Latin motto JUSTITIA REDIVIVA incorporated into the design. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Plain unprinted verso, aged to a warm ivory tone with visible fold lines from prolonged circulation. The payee's name, James Eveseth, is inscribed in period cursive manuscript script across the centre of the note. |
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| Comments |
The Ipswich Manufactory scheme was one of several colonial-era attempts to use paper currency tied to a productive enterprise rather than land or specie. The 1741 notes were backed — nominally — by the output of a linen manufactory, an arrangement that collapsed almost immediately when the enterprise failed to produce at anything near the scale required to support the emission.
Massachusetts had banned new private land bank emissions that same year under pressure from London, which is why these manufactory notes occupy such a strange legal position: issued just as the regulatory ground shifted beneath them. Most were redeemed under duress or simply repudiated. Survivors are rare precisely because so few circulated long enough to wear.