Beautiful Bond Backs

If you imagine the patterns made by an old Spirograph, that is the basis of a geometric lathe. These were first invented to do ornamentation on jewelry, pocket watches and things like Faberge eggs. But someone realized that if you engraved the patterns on to a flat metal plate you could then use it for intaglio printing as well.

Here is an article and video about a rose engine lathe that shows it retty well:
https://makezine.com/2018/03/22/beh...rose-engine/

Here's another bond back with a nice figure incorporated.

I was going through my railroad bonds last night and found a treasure trove of nice backs!

Definitely some very nice bonds GregAlex!

Here are a couple more that I picked up in the last year.

This topic has been languishing too long. I've come across a number of nice backs that deserve some attention.

I have one of those West Shore bonds from the first post! Every time I look at it, I think "wow, I wish I could borrow money for 475 years at 4% interest." The heady days of the gold standard, when people thought the dollar would retain its value forever. All those "payable in gold coin of the United States of the present standard" clauses (intended to circumvent a new Greenback inflation, or a Bryanist silver inflation) were voided by the Gold Reserve Act of 1933, one of the very few occasions on which Congress has exercised its Constitutional power to impair the obligation of contract, outside the context of bankruptcy law.