Showing only minor signs of age, wear and handling - mostly light toning. Expected fold creases from posting. No major issues to note. Eye-catching legible writing. Overall, in good to very good condition. Will display well in your collection. You will receive the exact sheet shown in the photos. It measures approx. 6 3/8" x 8 1/4"

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HISTORICAL REPORT: 1884 Montana Territory Transatlantic Mining Remittance Document — Comet Mine SECTION 1: TRANSCRIPTION & LITERAL READING • Heading Line: Comet Mine Jefferson Co / M. T. / Decr 12th / 84 (December 12, 1884) • Recipient Line: E. D. Knight Esq / Sir • Body Text - Part 1: Please forward to me a 25 $ draft payable to Elizabeth Rowe. England. The residue of the cheque enclosed please send with draft. • Body Text - Part 2: I enclose 38 cents in postage stamps to make the amount even. • Closing: I am / Yours respectfully • Signature: Samuel Rowe • Clerical Accounting Shorthand (Left Center): 25 cts pos [postage notation] SECTION 2: THE HISTORICAL SETTING & PROVENANCE In December 1884, Montana was a bustling Western Territory five years away from formal statehood, heavily populated by immigrant miners who left families behind in Europe. Lacking modern international electronic banking, these frontier laborers relied entirely on powerful bank cashiers or financial agents to convert their local mining wages or regional checks into secure transatlantic foreign drafts. This handwritten financial letter offers a magnificent window into the personal lives and global economic networks of Gilded Age miners. Samuel Rowe coordinates a specific $25 international draft to be sent across the Atlantic Ocean to a female relative in England, painstakingly enclosing 38 cents in loose physical postage stamps to balance his transactional ledger down to the exact penny. SECTION 3: THE SENDER & RECIPIENT The Recipient: E.D. Knight E.D. Knight acted as a trusted financial processing clerk, banker, or merchant accountant handling high-volume regional accounts for the frontier workforce. Working closely with corporate mining payrolls and regional checking systems, Knight managed international exchange desks, security notes, and commercial collections for the thousands of remote mountain miners fueling the Northwest's mineral boom. The Sender: Samuel Rowe Samuel Rowe was an immigrant miner working the deep lode veins of Jefferson County. His meticulous letter demonstrates the absolute trust placed in the banking system to securely route funds home, as well as the scarcity of exact fractional coinage on the frontier, which routinely forced miners to utilize United States postage stamps as a standardized substitute for small currency values. SECTION 4: THE ORIGIN — THE HISTORIC COMET MINE The heading explicitly tracks the document to the famous Comet Mine, located in the high mountains of Jefferson County, Montana Territory, between Helena and Boulder. Discovered in 1869, the Comet grew into one of the most prolific and high-yielding silver, lead, and gold mines in early Montana history. By 1884, the camp featured a massive, bustling industrial footprint including a heavy concentration mill, extensive worker housing, and its own short-lived community infrastructure built entirely around the lode operations. Primary manuscripts written directly from the Comet Mine camp during its legendary 1880s territorial boom are highly collected artifacts of Western industrial and immigrant history. SECTION 5: CONDITION REPORT • 100 percent authentic single-page territorial correspondence paper dating precisely to December 12, 1884. • Exceedingly beautiful, elegant, and entirely legible ink penmanship with outstanding color contrast. • Features original horizontal mailing folds alongside a small, historic paper loss at the top margin from the original opening process that does not affect any text. • Superb overall structural state with clean borders and very minimal uniform paper aging. ==============================================================

**Shipped securely in a poly sleeve, sandwiched in cardboard, inside a small rigid mailer via USPS Ground Advantage service w/ tracking**

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