Well… sort of. One is from the proprietary collection I purchased at the show, that had I left the show 30 minutes sooner on Sunday, I never would have even seen, and the second is actually from Eric Jackson’s 3-week auction that had ended the Tuesday before the show and I asked him to bring it rather than mailing it.

The first document is an unsevered 1872 Second and Third of Exchange from the “Triple-Currency Exchange”, Bowles Brothers & Co., not one of the more-frequently seen entities on foreign exhange documents. Unusual not only in that it is printed in multiple inks, but for my purposes in that it features two RB1a used improperly as documentaries on the reverse, both tied by herringbone cancels.

The second is just purely an aesthetic piece, an 1866 bill of lading from the San Francisco firm “Glidden & Williams.” I know I overpaid for it due to a bidding war breaking out in the last few hours of the auction (dadgum it!), but it’s IMO a stunning piece, so I pressed higher than I originally intended. I found one comp online being offered for $250, but it’s not stamped, so I like this example better anyway.

Bills of lading typically weren’t printed in multiple inks, let alone metallic ink. The gold is bright and reflective; more beautiful in hand than the image implies.