“THE WHEELS ARE CLOGGED WITH GOOD ACCOUNTS”

TILLINGHAST, A.O. Ready Pay Must Be Resumed! West Valley, New York: [Tillinghurst], 1887. Broadside sheet printed on recto, measuring 8 by 14-1/2 inches. $600.

Vintage broadside announcing new transaction policy in local dry goods store: “All goods must be sold for ready pay,” or “I will take in exchange for goods almost anything but trust.” With wood-engraved portrait of the owner.

This generous proprietor had overextended credit to his customers to the point of desperation. "I am hard up for money," he acknowledges in this broadside, "and I will take in exchange for goods, logs, skins and hides, butter and eggs, potatoes, old rubber, rags, copper and brass, pork, lard, tallow, honey, wool, oats, corn, beans, buckwheat, barley, peas, colts, cows and young stock, genseng root, dried fruits, poultry, cotton socks and almost anything but trust."

Evenly embrowned, several small closed tears along bottom edge. A wonderful specimen of small-town Americana.