Postcards with National Banks

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There was a time, long ago, when banks prided themselves on the image of their building which was intended to instill confidence in the public that the institution was "rock solid". The postcard for today is a good example of a bank building which left no doubt that the bank was not only safe but well capitalized. The image below is of the new home of the West Branch National Bank of Williamsport Pennsylvania and could easily be mistaken for a cathedral. The back of the circa 1912 postcard shows the bank was organized in 1835, had capital and surplus of $1,775,000 and assets of more than $5,000,000. During this time, national banks were chartered by the U.S. Government who assigned a charter number and even printed currency with the charter number and the name and location of the bank on it. Many of these banks went broke during the depression but the currency, referred to as National Bank notes, are still redeemable at face value at any banking institution. Many collectors of National Bank Notes collect national bank postcards to match the notes in their collections. If you happen to run across one of these bank notes, take it to a collector and they will pay you more than face value for it and if you have a postcard on the bank, he might be interested in that also. A better image of the postcard below is available in the Pennsylvania postcard section of our website, Moody's Postcards.