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1773 “Peyton Randolph” & “John Blair” Signed Virginia James River Bank Form Note Rarity with Only 600 Printed Ex: F.C.C. Boyd Estate; Stack’s John J. Ford, Jr. Collection

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PEYTON RANDOLPH (1721-1775). First & Third President of the Continental Congress first elected on September 5, 1774; Speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses; Chairman of the Virginia Conventions; and Governor of Virginia.

JOHN BLAIR (1732-1800). One of the Founding Fathers of the United States.; a Delegate from Virginia, and one of the Signers of the Constitution of the United States; and U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

Virginia, April 1, 1773, James River Bank Form, Twelve Pounds Currency, Signed by “Peyton Randolph” and “John Blair,” Also Signed by “Robert Carter Nicholas” as Virginia Treasurer. Manuscript Date. Faint short Contemporary Annotation on the reverse, PCGS graded Very Fine-20. Fr. VA-66. Ex: FORD & BOYD. Very Rare, being sharply Signed by PEYTON RANDOLPH & JOHN BLAIR at bottom left. One of the Finest Certified by PCGS.

One of Only 600 Notes Printed. Two-Sided. 170mm by 85mm. Death to Counterfeit. Indented at its left margin edge, well centered with full margins, well printed face and back on clean fine laid period paper. All handwritten portions, comprising most of the note, are easily readable, and the printed portions are likewise bold. Overall, solid and superior in its appearance and eye appeal for this scarce 1773 Virginia currency issue. Boldly signed in rich dark brown at bottom left “Peyton Randolph” & ”John Blair” being extremely sharp and clear. 12 Pounds is the highest denomination note on this issue.

Pedigree: Ex F.C.C. Boyd Estate; Stack's sale of the John J. Ford, Jr. Collection, Part XVII, March, 2007, Lot 4379.
PEYTON RANDOLPH (1721-1775). First & Third President of the Continental Congress first elected on September 5, 1774, he presided from September 5, 1774 to October 21, 1774, and again from May 10, 1775 to May 23, 1775, succeeded in office by Henry Middleton, Speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses, Chairman of the Virginia Conventions, and Governor of Virginia.

Robert Carter Nicholas (1728-1780) was a Virginia lawyer and political figure. He served in the Virginia House of Burgesses, the General Assembly, and the Court of Appeals, predecessor of the Supreme Court of Virginia; studied law at the College of William and Mary and practiced in the general court under the royal government. He served in the House of Burgesses, 1755-61 as the representative from York County, and from 1766-1775 as the representative of James City County, and was Treasurer for the Colony of Virginia, 1766-1775. From 1761 to 1774, Nicholas was one of the trustees of the Bray school - a charity school for black children - in Williamsburg, Virginia. He was the principal correspondent with Dr. Bray's Associates in England, who financed the school.

In October 1765 Nicholas, along with John Randolph and George Wythe, was part of committee that heard Thomas Jefferson's bar examinations. Later when Nicholas became Treasurer of Virginia, he stopped taking new cases and turned over many of his existing cases to Jefferson. When in 1769 Peyton Randolph, Speaker of the House of Burgesses, chose Thomas Jefferson to write a response to Royal Governor Lord Botetourt's opening remarks to the House, his motions although accepted and passed were felt in committee to be "lean and tepid" requiring rewrite by Nicholas. Jefferson never forgot this humiliation. In fact, in 1774 Jefferson had to rewrite a motion written by Nicholas objecting to the next Royal Governor Lord Dunmore's land proclamation. Also in May 1774, Nicholas introduced a motion written by Thomas Jefferson making June 1 a "day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer" to express sympathy of Virginia for their sister colony of Massachusetts as a result of the closing of the Port of Boston by the British under the Boston Port Act. On December 13, 1775 Nicholas after the battle of Great Bridge introduced a motion in the House of Burgesses denouncing Lord Dunmore as champion of "tyranny" a monster, "inimical and cruel" for pronouncing martial law and assuming powers, the "King himself could not exercise." Two days later he also submitted a motion to grant pardons to black slaves who he claimed had been deluded by the British to join Loyalist forces. Nicholas opposed the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, but he was a member of the committee appointed to draft a declaration of rights and a new form of government for Virginia. He was a member of the Virginia General Assembly from 1776 to 1778 and in 1779 was appointed to the high court of chancery. Consequently, he became a member of the first Court of Appeals, predecessor of the Supreme Court of Virginia. Judge Nicholas died the next year in 1780.

Nicholas was the first Signer of this Document. Those who Signed as Guarantors of the bond are:

John Blair Jr. (1732-1800). American politician, Founding Father and U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Blair was one of the best-trained jurists of his day. A famous legal scholar, he avoided the tumult of state politics, preferring to work behind the scenes. But he was devoted to the idea of a permanent union of the newly independent states and loyally supported fellow Virginians James Madison and George Washington at the Constitutional Convention.

His greatest contribution as a Founding Father came not in Philadelphia, but later as a judge on the Virginia court of appeals and on the U.S. Supreme Court, where he influenced the interpretation of the Constitution in a number of important decisions. Contemporaries praised Blair for such personal strengths as gentleness and benevolence, and for his ability to penetrate immediately to the heart of a legal question.
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