Having been duly inspired and shamed by Bob Hohertz’s article on dogs on checks and his plea for articles in the last issue of TCC, I offer the following topical items.
Figure 1 presents a striking vignette of an alerted dog guarding the safe. And a good thing he was on the job too, for his owner had carelessly left the safe open and bags of money lying around. This is a good advertisement for the dog, but one might wonder about banker Charles Hammond of Tipton, Iowa.
Figure 2 shows another striking vignette of a pioneer family complete with barking dog springing to arms, apparently to repulse a threat from Indians. The imprinted stamp is RN-C11.
Figure 3 shows a whimsical scene of a boy with a dog, watering his horse on a lazy summer day. It bears an RN-G1 imprinted revenue stamp.
These are much scarcer than dogs on checks. Figure 4 shows a profile of three prize mules of the Galbreaith Horse and Mule Company of Bentonville, Arkansas. The design is in black on pink paper. An earlier version of the Knott-Galbreaith Horse and Mule Company on blue paper shows the same vignette.
Figure 5 is an American Bank Note Company proof of a vignette of a team of six mules pulling a load of cotton bales. Not exactly a check or draft, but I have an 1871 draft of the DeSoto Bank of Memphis, Tennessee bearing this vignette, along with RN-C1. I would have shown it, but it is in such poor condition I wouldn’t want anyone to think I would collect such an item.
Figure 6 shows a team of two mules in the background of a riverport scene on an 1872 Nicholasville, Kentucky check. The revenue stamp is an RN-C2.
Guano on checks is even scarcer than mules on checks. I know of only one, and it is shown in Figure 7 on an 1867 Augusta, Georgia check of J.O. Matheson & Co., Commission Merchants. The revenue stamp is RN-B1.
Apparently the artists who created vignettes were not required to have actually seen the animals they depicted. How else can we understand the rectangular cow of Figure 8 above, or the would-be buffalo of Figure 9 below?
2007 Postscript
Above is a double-header from the Ivester collection – its vignettes include both mules and a dog! This beautiful draft from Louisville, Kentucky bears an RN-C11 imprint.
This article appeared in the July – September 1997 issue of The Check Collector.