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Wells Fargo Express & Co 1880\'s Stamp Sealer Iron Seal Press Embosser For Sale
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Wells Fargo Express & Co 1880\'s Stamp Sealer Iron Seal Press Embosser :
$15000.00
1870\'s-1880\'s Wells Fargo Express San Francisco California, President Lloyd Tevis Cast Iron Seal Press Embosser 1-3/4 Diameter Seal 8-1/2\" tall.
This is an old seal press with vintage originalto this press hand made die.Let meexplain.1st Paint on the Seal Press is originaland shows no damage around the lead seal from either removing the lead die or burning the paint to melt or pouring new lead.You are not removing the lead seal from a die without doing some visible damageto the paint.I added one image of an 1880s railroad seal that was removed by the railroad and keep at the New York Central Railroad Bond Departmentand you can see the damage that is done to knock off a seal.You\'re also not banding the brass die to repour the lead without the metal band cutting and chipping the paint when it\'s closed up to pour.
Just to make it 100% clear this vintage Seal Press does not have a new China made die.I\'ve been dealing in rare seals for 25 years and know all about how places CNC or Laser etch new dies and put them in old Seal Presses for Law Offices Ect. Thats not the case here this is a hand stamped die with incredible strike and spacing. Beautiful natural patinaon the early Linotype lead that holds a hard sharp image unlike the softer lead used in most seal presses that you end up not being able to read the embossing. This was made by a true master craftsman,and I doubt there is anyone alive today that could produce the die. You would 1st need a set of custom-madereverse letter stamps that the cost alone would be an expense that to make one fake die would end up losingmoney. Then even if you did find a way to come up with some stamps that don\'t exit you now have to become a master and stamping them is an art that takes years to learn.
For those that don\'t understand what a reverse stamp is I uploaded an image of a Seal from the CCC&I Railroad that shows the view of the stamping. The brass die is the NEGITIVE and the lead when poured in becomes the POSITIVE. So you have to have special letter stamps to make a die.What I\'ve found in my research reading some early books on the history of Wells Fargo shows that Lloyd Tevis split the company operations in 1884 between the Banks & Express with the \"Wells Fargo Express\" operations being run by John J Valentine and the \"Wells Fargo & Co\'s\" Banking half of the company being run by Homer S King. On March 13th 1884 John J Valentine was made General Manager of \"Wells Fargo Express\" with E.N. Cooper General Superintendent Western Department of \"Wells Fargo Express\" HQ at San Francisco and W.J. Hancock General Superintendent of the Eastern Department of \"Wells Fargo Express\" HQ at Omaha with Both reporting to Valentine.
Info above was taken from page 176 of \"WELLS FARGO Advancing the American Frontier\" Written by a former Wells Fargo executive Edward Hungerford.I will include images of many examples of 1870\'s-1880\'s Express Sealers that show the \"Wells Fargo Express\" marking that confirms that during the time that Tevis was President of Wells Fargo that Express Agents also used Wax Sealers with wording that matches the layout of Tevis\'s Personal Embossing Sealer.Also some images from the 1877-1879 newspaper clips where Wells Fargo Express was the name used.
Note: I contacted the Wells Fargo Museum and got no real assistance.This is a very rare piece of American History from the Wild West.I\'ve bought and sold early Railroad Seal Presses for over 25 years,and this hands down is the rarest pieceof Western Americana I\'ve found.The Die was hand struck by a master as you can see the spacing and alignmentof the letters on the impression.This press leaves a very high detailed impression from the Die and the poured lead.The person making this knew it was for someone very important!
Lloyd Tevis was involvedwithRailroads, Steam Ships, Oil, Gold, Copper, Silver, Wine, Horses, Telegraph, Ice, Land, & Express Companies.
INFO Below was taken from orginal newspaper clips that reported the current events of the time.Though from 1865 until 1868 the Southern Pacific Railroad existed in name only, in 1866 it had been authorized by Congress to connect with and become a part of a south-ern transcontinental railroad On April 4, 1868, its officers—among themPresident LloydTevis, Secretary Butler B. Minor, and Treasurer Edgar Mills—signed a con-tract agreeing to purchase the San Francisco & San José Railroad. This transaction was to cost $2.77 million and was to be completed before December 31, 1870.209 In the 1860s,Teviswas one of the principal movers in the development of railroads in and around San Francisco, including the San Francisco & San Jose Railroad, the Oakland Short Lines, and the first iteration of the Southern Pacific Railroad. San Francisco July 15th, 1868 Friend Huntington On the 10th inst I drew on you in favor of the Bank of California in gold ($500,000) five hundred thousand dollars. I had to draw heavily to make up for what we were short in the month previous. Before drawing—we owed at the Bank a little upwards of $200,000. The CPRR owes in other places borrowed $350,000. The Western Pacific borrowed $150,000. On Saturday last the 11th I concluded a trade for the Southern Pacific at $350,000—giving us a majority of the Stock and the board of directors. [William] Ralston . . . is the nominal purchaser so far as is know [sic] to those who tell exceptLloydTevisand Horace W. Carpentier.All are to keep still and we will change the board gradually so as to avoid attract-ing attention. We will put in the board our confidential friends, Lewis Cunningham was elected a director yesterday. We shall put in Edgar Mills, and probably Wm E. Barron, C.T[emple] Emmet and others of the like Saturday.Tevisis bought out with the others but I think we will keep him in the board. I think we will not be surein it until we want to assume control.We have the right to buy the San Jose Road under the contract made last winter byTevis& Carpentier. Hoping it will meet your approval. I am Truly yours, Leland Stanford The Homestake, one of America’s greatest gold mines was discovered by Moses Manual and Hank Harney in 1876. The famous trio of George Hearst,Lloyd Tevisand James Ben Ali Haggin took control in 1877. The mine produced millions of ounces of gold until it finally closed in 2002.Lloyd Tevis(1824-1899) started the Pacific Union Express Company in 1868 along with D.O. Mills, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins and Charles Crocker. The company operated the route between Reno and Virginia City, Nevada, and immediately got express privilegesfrom the Central Pacific Railroad (Loomis, Wells Fargo). In 1869, theTevisgroup started accumulating shares of Wells Fargo after it had declined in price. After obtaining the controlling interest in Wells Fargo, the Pacific Union Express was consolidated into the company in 1870 (Loomis).Teviswas named president of Wells Fargo in 1872 and was president of the company for 20 years.Tevismade millions from his investments in the Homestake and along with Haggin, Hearst and Marcus Daly owned the great Anaconda mine in Montana.Tevisalso had other ventures in California including the California Steam Navigation Company and the Pacific Ice Company Due to the furious competition between the various ice companies, they decided to combine their operations and, in 1881, they formed Union Ice Company. Lloyd Tevisof Wells Fargo Bank was named president and Edward W. Hopkins was appointed vice president. In 1891, the company officially incorporated as The Union Ice Company, Inc.Tevisand Hopkins made arrangements to supply Boca ice for the countless railroad boxcars headed for markets both east and west. With ice from Boca, fresh California produce could be shipped anywhere in the country. This organization was really a consolidation of the six principal ice companies in California 27 November 1874: The Occidental and Oriental Steam-ship Company is Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, David Colton,Lloyd Tevisand Mark
Hopkins. Their purpose in creating O&O is to provide the Central Pacific and
Union Pacific Railroads with a transpacific link to replace the Pacific Mail
Steamship Company, which recently moved its American base of operations from
San Francisco to Panama. Continued 16 December. (Sources: Daily Alta
California (San Francisco), 28 November and 17 December 1874; Anderson\'s
White Star.) Public Record In Sacramento county—LloydTevis, 43,000 Acres This was done.[134]On the 27th of March, 1868, as a part of a series of compromise arrangements, the Oakland Water Front Company was incorporated. The subscribers and original directors were H. W. Carpentier, president; Samuel Merritt, President;LloydTevis, secretary; Leland Stanford, treasurer; E. R. Carpentier and J. B. Felton.Mr.Tevisand H. W. Carpentier were in the same year directors of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. The Oakland Water Front Company was capitalized for $5,000,000,and the stock was divided into 50,000 shares. Of these shares H. W. Carpentier subscribed for 23,000, or 46 per cent; Stanford for 17,500, or 35 per cent; and Felton for4,999, or 10 per cent.Lloyd Tevistook 2,500 shares, E. R. Carpentier 2,000 shares, andSamuel Merritt 1 share Being unable to secure the necessary funds by selling stock, Robert C. Chambers, president of the Utah Eastern, and superintendent of the Ontario Silver Mining Company, bonded the road to J. B. Haggin (of Haggin &Lloyd Tevis, a San Francisco partnership), who was vice-president of Wells-Fargo and the Nevada Central Railroad Company, and who was also president of the Ontario Silver Mining Company. Lloyd Tevisalready had a hand in some of San Francisco\'s most prominent firms. He had been president ofWells Fargo Express Co.and a vice president of the Southern Pacific railroad. He formed theHomestake Mining Co.withGeorge W. Hearst, father ofWilliam Randolph Hearst, who developed the Hearst Corp., which now runsThe Chronicle. For this venture, Tevis\' partners includedCharles Felton, who both ran the U.S. mint in San Francisco and served as assistant treasurer of the United States from 1868 to 1877. Another partner wasGeorge Loomis, Felton\'s brother- in-law and owner of a large dry-goods store. They formed Pacific Coast Oil on Sept. 10, 1879. (Their modern-day successors at San Ramon chose to celebrate the event today because more people could be present, O\'Reilly said, noting that other ChevronTexaco offices worldwide have been staging celebrations for the past few months.) For a major source of oil, the founders set their gaze on Southern California. Two years earlier, a well in the Santa Clarita area had produced a gusher, but the men who found it lacked the money and infrastructure to market the oil. Felton, Loomis and Tevis bought out the company. The company held mining interests in: - theComstock LodeinNevada
- theAnaconda Copper MineinMontana
- theCerro de Pasco MineinPeru
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