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Sheet of 3 Checks - 1800's dated Ocean Bank of the City of New York - Very Interesting Bank Robbery Story

Inv# CK1057
State(s): New York
Years: 18--

Unissued uncut sheet of 3 checks. Great red coloring! In relation to this bank, James "Old Jimmy" Hope (1836 – June 2, 1905) was a 19th-century American burglar, bank robber and underworld figure in Philadelphia and later New York City. He was considered one of the most successful and sought after bank burglars in the United States during his lifetime as well as a skilled escape artist for his repeated breakouts from Auburn State Prison in New York. A pioneering career criminal and safe-cracker, he planned and took part in many of the major robberies of the post-American Civil War era including those of the Kensington Savings Bank and, in partnership with Ned Lyons, the Ocean Bank and Philadelphia Navy Yard. His most infamous crime, however, was the 1878 robbery of the Manhattan Savings Institution with the George Leslie Gang.

James Hope was born to poor Irish immigrant parents in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1836. There he worked as a machinist, eventually married and started a family. On April 6, 1869, however, he and a group of men posing a police detectives stole between $80,000 and $100,000 from the Kensington Savings Bank. His partners in the robbery included Jim Casey, Jim McCormick, George Howard and three other men. Although they successfully escaped with the money, a fight over splitting up the cash resulted in the deaths of three gang members. Jim Casey was later killed by McCormick and Howard's body was found near Yonkers on the Hudson River. While in custody in San Francisco years later, Hope claimed that a member of the Kensington gang was so upset over the split that he vowed to kill Howard. Hope told authorities that he believed this dispute was the motive leading to Howard's murder.

Four months later, he and Ned Lyons, with two other men, rented a basement underneath the Ocean Bank, located at Fulton and Greenwich Streets, in New York City. They erected a partition to block passersby from looking into the basement from the street and then cut through the stone floor directly under the vault. They took over $1 million in cash and bonds but later discarded the bonds in and "took as much gold and silver as they could carry without attracting attention". This amounted to only a few thousand dollars. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Hope

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Condition: Excellent
Item ordered may not be exact piece shown. All original and authentic.
Price: $30.00