2 Dollars = 10 Shillings

The Farmer's Joint Stock Banking Co. was one of dozens of short-lived private banks chartered during the free banking frenzy of the 1830s, when American states issued charters with minimal oversight and wildcat banking was endemic. Whether this institution actually maintained specie reserves adequate to back its notes was, as with most contemporaries, an open question. The dual denomination — dollars and shillings — reflects a monetary culture still in transition; New York and New England merchants routinely calculated in both systems well into the 1840s.

New England Bank Note Company was among the more reputable security printers of the period, their Boston operation producing notes for scores of banks across the region. That a note was well-printed tells you nothing about the bank behind it.