This isn't a picture postcard, but its significance doesn't rest on its beauty. This card carries the earliest postmark in the collection: 5 PM, May 1, 1900. It was sent by the Bank of Salem (later the State Bank of Salem) to John L. Shrum, Esq., and it records a deposit made to Shrum's account on May 1 by Miss Kate Shrum in the amount of $22.85. The bank's officers, named across the top of the card, are L.W. Sinclair, President, J. F. Persise, Cashier, and J. W. Spaulding, Asst. Cashier. Capital was $55,000.00 and surplus was $60,679.00. (Sinclair lived next door to the bank, and the Sinclair and Persise families were related.) The card is a government postal, as you can see from the front, shown below -- which brings up the confusion again of what was the front and the back of a postcard: Forms like this one and advertising messages printed on the backs of government postals became so common that he Post Office sold uncut sheets of the cards, so that printers could print several cards at once then cut the sheets into individual cards for mailing. Errors and miscut cards (upside-down messages and cards with the postage imprint trimmed off) are a philatelic collecting specialty. (4/8/06)

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