A folded sheet - pinned closed at the top edge. 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. Folded as seen in the photos, it measures approx. 5" x 5"
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HISTORICAL REPORT: Montana Territory Transatlantic Financial Document — Comet Mine to Melbourne, Australia SECTION 1: TRANSCRIPTION & LITERAL READING • Recipient Line: To. E. W. Knight Cashire F. N. B. • Salutation: Sir • Body Text - Part 1: Enclosed you will Please find the Sum of 130 Dollars out of which you make a Draft on Melbourn Australia. Payable to George Reynolds Sent by Joseph Porrow Comet • Body Text - Part 2: Please Send Draft to Address below and Oblige yours Respectfully • Signature Address Block: Joseph Porrow No 55 / Comet Mine / Jefferson County / Montana Terr • Left-Margin Clerical Notation: 130 00 / 04 SECTION 2: THE HISTORICAL SETTING & PROVENANCE During the peak of the late 19th-century gold and silver booms, Montana Territory attracted an incredibly diverse global workforce. Lacking modern means of global bank transfers, immigrant miners working deep in the mountain lodes relied entirely on capital city banks to send funds back to family or business associates in their home countries. This document offers an exceptional primary window into this international remittance system. Joseph Porrow, an overseas laborer living in a remote mining camp, sends a very substantial sum of $130.00 (representing months of dangerous, hard manual labor) to the First National Bank in Helena. He explicitly requests a foreign banking draft to be drawn across the globe to Melbourne, Australia. SECTION 3: THE SENDER & RECIPIENT The Recipient: E.W. Knight Edward W. Knight was the long-time, prominent cashier of the First National Bank of Helena (abbreviated by the sender as "F. N. B."). Operating out of the territory's chief financial institution on Last Chance Gulch, Knight's desk served as the central clearinghouse for the territory's raw wealth, managing complex foreign exchange networks that stretched from mountain mining tunnels to global financial capitals. The Sender: Joseph Porrow Joseph Porrow was an overseas immigrant miner operating at the Comet complex. His note includes his specific camp identity or bunkhouse designation ("No 55"), showing how workers organized their lives within corporate mining camps. To ensure the bank clerk could accurately map the request, Porrow painstakingly listed his full territorial address at the bottom of the sheet. SECTION 4: THE ORIGIN — THE HISTORIC COMET MINE The document provides an excellent localized origin line from the famous Comet Mine in Jefferson County, Montana Territory. First discovered in the late 1860s, the Comet mine evolved into one of the most prolific, high-yield silver and lead producers in the region. Because the camp sat high in the mountains between Helena and Boulder, it operated as its own self-contained micro-community. Hand-written banking requests sent from the active miners of the Comet camp during the pre-statehood territorial era are highly desirable, premium artifacts for Western Americana and postal history collectors. SECTION 5: CONDITION REPORT • 100 percent authentic single-page territorial correspondence document on unruled paper, cleanly preserving its original pre-statehood "Montana Terr" location mark. • Exceptional visual contrast featuring clear, bold ink handwriting that remains completely legible across the entire page face. • Features original horizontal transit folds and an authentic pair of filing/spindle punch holes at the upper margin from the bank's original archival filing system. • Superb overall structural state with clean borders and very minimal uniform paper aging. ==============================================================
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