HBF Core Collection - Detail for object 5053

HBCC-5053
1896 Silver Certificate
Denomination: $50.00
Essay of Face

HBCC-5053 Undated $50.00. Essay or proof (photographic reproduction). Silver Certificate. Friedberg-Unlisted. Choice Uncirculated.
Signatures: None. • Serial Number: None. • Treasury Seal: None.
Face Design: Central vignette, Science Presenting Steam and Electricity to Commerce and Manufacture, as altered and engraved by G.F.C. Smillie after the original design by Edwin H. Blashfield.
Back Design: Blank.
Physical Description: Contemporary photographic reproduction of an early composition submitted for the $50 note, mounted on heavy matte board nearly 2 millimeters thick. Broad margins. Some light spotting and aging of the paper is noted, though mostly on the mounting board. In the lower margin is the handwritten note, "as altered and engraved by G.F.C. Smillie from E.H. Blashfield's design." The back bears the notation, "Property of G.F.C. Smillie."
Engraving Notes and Comments: Reproduction of the face design proposed for the $50 Silver Certificate. An apparently complete design, save for the Treasury signatures.
Provenance: Purchased from Mrs. Louise Entriken, December 16, 1971. Formerly in the collection of Robert F. Schermerhorn.
Narrative: As noted in the earlier discussions of the $2 notes, the design for that denomination was originally intended for the $50 denomination. This specimen shows how the design would have appeared had it been used for the larger denomination.
Edwin Blashfield, whose commission was to prepare a design for the $50, was very displeased that his design was altered for use as a $2 note. In a letter to G.F.C. Smillie of April 18, 1895, Blashfield writes,
"In regard to changing [the] denomination of my fifty, please tell Mr. Johnson that in addition to my other reasons given before and which are the same today as then, I also object distinctly on artistic grounds to the change from fifty to a two. You can easily see that the 50 is an important compositional factor in the building up of my design. I have arranged a pyramid which a two cannot possibly supplement a fifty. It could be changed to a twenty or a ten, without any injury to the balance of the composition but not to any denomination expressed by a single numeral."
In fact, careful comparison of this $50 note to the final design as used for the $2 note shows very little significant change. The changes in the denomination markers are not particularly important and do not extensively change the overall composition. Though the present $50 design is illustrated by Gene Hessler as Blashfield's original, it is this writer's conjecture that this $50 specimen is not the design to which Blashfield's letter refers. It is worthy to recall here that the handwritten margin on the present piece indicates that this design is "as altered and engraved by G.F.C. Smillie from E.H. Blashfield's design," indicating that Blashfield's original submission was of a different style.
Harry W. Bass, Jr. record: Inventory number 16545-Q.