massachusetts sword in hand colonisal note
designed engraved and printed by the great american patriot
paul revere!! of the classic midnight ride and sons of american liberty fame participated at the boston tea party and famous silversmith and the most admired man in usa bank note printing history with his innovative anti-counterfeiting
started the american revolution single handedly with his political boston masscure engraving showing british troops firing into unarmed colonists protesting the many repressive taxes imposed by the greedy british parliment
these notes were famous as they had an american minuteman who fought the british with the shot heard round the world at the first battle of the war in lexington and concord april 20 1775
it says on the note above the minuteman issued in defense of american liberty and in the minutemans left hand is the magna charta which is like the bill of rights today
and in latin surrouynding the minuteman it says translated in english by arms he seeks peace...........
the first printings of these sword in hand notes where done august 18 1775 not many sirvive and most all are basically rags in vg or lower with major problems and it two pieces as the paper they were printed on was brittle and when folded really damaged and separated the notes almost in half
being that they where paper money many soon passed these notes as fast as they could and by 1779 these notes where virtually worthless but they where good for paying ones taxes so many got paid in and destroyed
no one was going to keep a piece of paper worth 12 shillings let's say over a 12 shilling silver coin so again these notes circulated and then turned in for payment of taxes
hardly any survive and even in the friedberg price guide are unpriced about fine and just say rare or very rare
paul revere printed these notes in the city/town of watertown mass just above british occupied boston
man can you imagine if you were caught by a British patrol in the city or wherever with one of these notes on your person
also in Boston harbor they decommissioned a British man of war and put on large printing presses and counterfeited these sword in hand notes but not too successfully as the paper was different and soon the august 1775 first printing was changed to try to circumvent the tory made counterfeits and they are easy to tell today but no where as rare or historical as an original paul reverse printe and engraved sword in hand note
the original printing plate survives to this day in the mass. historical society the other side has the famous revere engraved boston massacre printing plate
large plates of copper where rare and hard to come by so I see paul revere was economical in his use thereof
also paul revere is bostons favorite son!
sorry my krazy koin peeps I had a choice vf note to put up here but to no avail as upload says image too large for site
well I am not computer smart besides being a day short and a dollar late
Posted 07/28/2007 10:10 am
