NEW ENGLAND TRIM

 

Regardless of the hobby certain qualifiers will always be a constant. Within paper money collecting terms like trimmed often evoke a negative connotation that a note lacks originality and has been likely been modified to improve its appearance. However, when it comes to contemporary trimmings when the note actually circulated, as in the case of National Banknotes from New England, a trimming is not so much a negative owing to the history of banking in the region.

Dubbed a New England Trim, this practice was believed to be the result of bank employees trimming notes to fit cash boxes that were originally made for Obsolete notes, which were often smaller than the post-1861 federal issues.

The typical host for this phenomenon is an Original Series or Series of 1875 National in which the margins are entirely trimmed away and the leading edge of the engraved portion of the design essentially becomes the new margin.

The practice was particularly prominent in Boston and the rest of Massachusetts, with banks as far as Bangor, Maine and even banks in Upstate New York adopting the practice briefly before it eventually died out around the early 1900s. This leaves Brown Backs the last type where a New England Trim can be encountered with regularity.

Today's collectors typically pay no special attention while others simply see it as part of the numismatic calculus of collecting National Banknotes from New England. Examples of this practice can be had with regularity depending on the issuing bank.

Stack's Bowers Galleries will have a number of National Banknotes from New England including one issued by the First National Bank of Bangor, Maine (Charter# 112) which sports an atypical New England Trim where the top margin remains intact. This may be reflective of an unusual in-bank dictate, resulting in the existence of similar examples recorded by the National Bank Note Census.

Offered as lot 7349 collectors will have the chance to bid on this National Bank of Bangor note as well as a fine selection of seldom-offered rarities as part of our November 2024 Showcase Auction.

To read the complete article, see:
What is a New England Trim? (https://stacksbowers.com/what-is-a-new-england-trim/)

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