JM Kershaw & St. Louis "Bears" Stamps

I recently purchased a large lot of ephemera which included an 1844 newspaper entitled The People's Organ printed in St. Louis Missouri. I am totally enamored with the graphic advertisements in the paper. I soon started researching some of the firms hoping to find a letterhead, billhead, receipt, check or trade card to couple with the ads. One of the ads in the paper is for James M. Kershaw - engraver and copperplate printer: bills of exchange, heads of bills, diplomas, business, address and visiting cards, notarial, consular and counting-house seals, silverware, door plates, wood cuts neatly engraver. Research into Kershaw revealed that he designed and printed the St. Louis "Bears" provisional stamps in 1845.

Kershaw was a well-known engraver in St. Louis and proprietor of the Western Card and Seal Engraving Co. Kershaw engraved the designs on a small copper plate, with an area sufficient to contain six subjects in three rows of two. Not having any means of mechanical reproduction he had to cut each design separately by handwork.

The majority of the St. Louis Bears appear to have been used by two firms: Crow & McCreery, wholesale dry goods merchants; and William Nisbet & Co., bankers. These two firms were in the habit of sending to Louisville big bulky letters with enclosed drafts and other letters to be forwarded. Consequently, in the summer of 1895 there was a great find of Bears stamps in Louisville KY.

More information:

http://siegelauctions.com/enc/pdf/Bears.pdf

Comments

MrCachet said…

Great find! I really enjoy reading the ads - Like Scarpa's Acoustic Oil - the ONLY cure for deafness. I wish I could find the stuff for myself. My wife would be appreciative.

December 15, 2011 at 7:27 PM

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THE EPHEMERA OF BUSINESS

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