25 Cents Sutton and Stewart

Sutton & Stewart were a San Francisco-based merchandising firm, and their 1862 fractional scrip belongs to a period when small-denomination federal coinage had almost entirely vanished from circulation — hoarded almost immediately after the outbreak of the Civil War. Private merchants across the country filled the gap with their own paper, most of it backed by nothing more credible than the issuer's local reputation.

Harris printed in Philadelphia but the notes circulated on the opposite coast, which was not unusual — West Coast businesses routinely contracted Eastern printers for quality lithographic work unavailable locally at the time.