Catalog
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| Issuer | City Bank |
|---|---|
| Year | 1836 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| 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 | CITY BANK / FIVE SHILLINGS / Currency / The President / Directors & Co. / St. John New Brunswick 16 July 1836 |
| Reverse description | Black on plain paper. Intricate lathe-work design composed of three large interlocking rosette guilloche medallions at centre, flanked by two vertical columns of smaller oval guilloche panels at each side. 'CITY BANK' printed in bold serif letters across the central medallion. |
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| Comments |
City Bank was one of numerous Massachusetts-chartered institutions competing for commercial trust in the 1830s, a decade when American free banking culture produced an almost unmanageable proliferation of paper currency from hundreds of competing private and state-chartered banks. The New England Bank Note Company, operating out of Boston, was among the more reputable regional security printers of the period — their work appears across a wide range of New England issues from this era, though they were eventually absorbed into the consolidation that produced the American Bank Note Company in 1858.
Five-shilling denominations are an interesting survival of colonial monetary habits persisting well after U.S. independence — the denomination reflects continued public familiarity with shilling reckoning in everyday New England commerce.