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3 Dollars Merchants Bank
| Issuer | Merchants Bank, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Territory |
|---|---|
| Year | 1854 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Dollar |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | Log in to see details |
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| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Blackletter title 'Merchants Bank' at top centre, flanked by two guilloche medallions each bearing the numeral '3'. Centre vignette shows a seated male figure at a forge with machinery. Oval portrait of a gentleman at lower right, and a classical female portrait at lower left. Cursive and letterpress text throughout; double border with repeated '3' along the lower edge. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Merchants Bank Will pay THREE DOLLARS on demand to the bearer Fᵗ. Leavenworth W.L.Ormsby, New York. KANSAS |
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| Comments |
The Merchants Bank of Fort Leavenworth was a creature of the territorial boom, chartered in the early 1850s when Kansas Territory was little more than a military outpost and land-speculation fever. Whether it ever operated as a functioning bank in any meaningful sense is genuinely unclear — many Kansas Territory paper issuers of this period were thinly capitalized institutions whose notes circulated at steep discounts almost from the day of printing.
W.L. Ormsby was one of New York's more technically accomplished security printers of the mid-nineteenth century, known for geometric lathe-work that was difficult to counterfeit. His involvement here tells you the notes were professionally produced regardless of the issuer's actual solvency.