First National Bank of Oxnard, California
This specimen was lot 17968 in Heritage auction 354 (the Horwedel sale, Long Beach, CA, September 2004), where it sold for $9,775. The catalog description[1] noted, "Second Public Offering in Six Decades, Oxnard, CA - $10 1902 Date Back Fr. 618 The First NB Ch. # (P)9481. This bank represents another example of the disconnect between the census and the real world in assessing rarity, desirability, and availability. While the census shows five notes extant from here, this is the only specimen that has ever been offered from this location at public sale. We've been in this business for thirty plus years and have never laid eyes on another note from here, Krakover never found one, and Charley Colver, a man who devoted over half a century to searching out and acquiring southern California rarities, could never acquire even one example from Oxnard either. This note did not surface until three years ago, when it appeared in Lyn Knight's June 2001 sale, where, overshadowed by a passel of National Gold Bank Note rarities, Lowell purchased it for what now seems to be the ultra-reasonable sum of $5500. It's an evenly circulated and problem free Very Good-Fine example, with plenty of honest circulation but no defects whatever. Tonight's offering gives the many Ventura County collectors one more opportunity to obtain a note from Oxnard's only issuing bank, something they've had only once in the past sixty years."
Link to:
- return to National Bank Notes of Ventura County, California
- see National Bank Notes of California for a complete list by charter number