LOT Holabird-Kagin Americana  /  Mueller ~ Schmidtmann Western Americana BONANZA  / 

643

San Francisco,CA - 1907 - Northern Electric Company $5.00 Scrip :

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Western Americana Start Price:150.00 USD Estimated At:300.00 - 600.00 USD
San Francisco,CA - 1907 - Northern Electric Company $5.00 Scrip :
Series A PMG 66 Gem Uncirculated.

Northern Electric Company

This scrip for the Northern Electric Company was unknown until recently when a small group was discovered in the San Francisco Bay area by a well-known dealer. It is thought that less than 20 pieces are known and in fact there may as few as a dozen known. All of the denominations, $1, $5, $10, $20, are not fully issued and the $5, $10 & $20 pieces have been cancelled by small whole punches through the signature of the President. The $1 denomination have no cancellations but were not fully issued either. At present the $1 denominations are not known in uncirculated condition.

The examples here represent the majority of the discovery and all have been professionally graded by PMG. The Northern Electric Company was the parent of the Northern Electric Railroad based in San Francisco The scrip was to have been issued November 15, 1907 and payable Jan 15th, 1908. it is unknown if any were ever fully issued. Each is signed by Henry A. Butters as President. This company may have been a victim of the stock market crash and financial panic of 1907-8 caused by over speculation in worthless mining companies.

The $1 scrip notes are ornately engraved on the back in the style of some of the finest engraving on U.S. notes. In the center is an RN facsimile with Northern Electric Railway logo. The reverses of the other notes are blank. The Northern Electric Company was the successor to the Chico Electric Railway.

The new company extended the railway service to Oroville, Yuba City, Marysville and Sacramento, with other branches to nearby communities. The railroad then proceeded to expand to Bay Area cities and generally did well until about the onset of WWI, when commercial business on all rail lines subsided. This rail line is notable to collectors because one of the founding fathers was Wendell P. Hammon, the father of one of the west's first great ephemera dealers based in Sacramento.

Hammon was a major player in the Yuba gold dredging fields. Other partners of theirs in this venture included the Lillienthal family, long time San Francisco whiskey merchants, and Henry A. Butters a probable relative of the engineer on the Comstock who was one of the first to mass process low grade Comstock ores at a mill bearing the family name. All of the scrip is printed by Britton & Rey of San Francisco, who were considered the top lithographers in the west ever since the gold rush period. [Ref: Poor's Manuals, 1906, etc.]
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