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5 Dollars Cherokee Insurance & Banking Co.
| Issuer | Cherokee Insurance and Banking Co. |
|---|---|
| Year | 1855 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 5 Dollars (5 USD) |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | The left portion of the obverse carries an intaglio vignette of two Native American figures — one standing, one kneeling — set against a naturalistic landscape with foliage, evoking the Cherokee heritage of the issuing institution. At upper centre, an oval portrait medallion contains a bust of George Washington facing right, flanked by ornamental wheat sheaves, with the denomination numeral '5' enclosed in an intricate guilloche counter at upper right bearing the circular legend 'INCORPORATED BY THE STATE OF GEORGIA'. The lower portion bears the bank title in bold letterpress across the centre, with a manuscript promise-to-pay text dated September 1st, 1855, and two handwritten officer signatures above the printed titles 'Cash.' and 'Pres.' The printer's imprint of Danforth, Wright & Co., N. York & Philad. appears at the lower centre margin. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse is printed in a warm reddish-brown tone and centres on a large numeral '5' rendered in an ornate lathe-work guilloche design, set within a circular medallion of fine engine-turned scrollwork. A horizontal band of intricate geometric and foliate guilloche patterns extends across the full width of the note, flanked by decorative corner ornaments. The overall design is characteristic of mid-nineteenth-century American security printing, relying entirely on mechanical lathe-work patterns with no pictorial vignette. |
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| Comments |
The Cherokee Insurance and Banking Co. operated out of New Orleans, Louisiana — not Cherokee territory — despite a name that has misled collectors for generations. It was one of dozens of Louisiana state-chartered institutions whose names bore no geographic relationship to their actual location or clientele, a common enough practice in antebellum Southern banking.
Danforth, Wright & Co. was absorbed into the American Bank Note Company at its 1858 formation, which puts a firm ceiling on when this plate could have been produced. Louisiana's Free Banking Act of 1853 had opened the door to a wave of new charters, and many of the institutions that rushed in — this one among them — did not survive the financial pressures of the late 1850s.