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6 1/4 Cents Huntingdon, Cambria and Indiana Turnpike Road Company
| Issuer | Huntingdon, Cambria and Indiana Turnpike Road Company |
|---|---|
| Year | 1816 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 6 1/4 Cts Treasurer of the Huntingdon, Cambria and Indiana TURNPIKE ROAD COMPANY, pay to the bearer on demand, SIX and a QUARTER CENTS. April 22d 1816 Attest, D Stewart Sec'y. Jno Blair President. Murray Draper Fairman & Co |
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| Signature(s) | D. Stewart (Secretary) and Jno. Blair (President) |
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| Comments |
Murray, Draper, Fairman & Co. were among the most technically accomplished bank note engravers working in early nineteenth-century Philadelphia, and their involvement here is slightly incongruous — this is road-company scrip, not a bank note, issued to solve a chronic small-change shortage in the Pennsylvania interior. The 6¼-cent denomination is itself a fractional artifact of the old Spanish real system: one real equaled 12½ cents, so this note is exactly half a real.
Turnpike companies in Pennsylvania routinely issued scrip during this period when coined small change was simply unavailable along their routes. Whether it circulated beyond the immediate road corridor is doubtful.