Greetings all:
A couple of years ago I went to the location our usual Chapter 75 Mart was held and instead found an ephemera show. I decided to go in and have a look.
After rifling through hundreds, perhaps thousands, of vintage and antique postcards, I came across an interesting one. On the front of the postcard is a picture of what appeared to be a very fine pocket watch with a lot of engraving on the inside. It was a presentation watch given to one Hank Monk by 10 of his admirers whose names were engraved inside the fron case lid. Also engraved was a famous quote by Mr. Monk where he said to Mr. Greeley "Keep your seat Mr. Greeley, I'll have you there." I believe the original quote ended with "on time". Perhaps the inscriber ran out of space?
http://home.earthlink.net/~bmw4re/HMonk.JPG

Anyway, after doing a little research on the internet, I found an excerpt from a Mark Twain column in the Virginia City Enterprise from 1863 where he describes the presentation.

quote:

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HANK MONK

A superb gold watch, worth five or six hundred dollars, was presented to Hank Monk, here, night before last. The donors were John S. Henning, Joe Clark, H. H. Raymond, Alex. O'Neil, William Thompson, Jr., John O. Earl, W. M. Lent and three others. The ceremonies were conducted at Frank Ludlow's daguerrean rooms. Judge Turner made the presentation speech, and Judge Hardy replied on behalf of the defendant. Champagne flowed freely. The watch is gorgeously embellished with coaches and horses, and with charms and seals in keeping with the same, and bears for a motto Hank's famous remark to Horace Greeley: "KEEP YOUR SEAT, HORACE-I'LL GET YOU THERE ON TIME!

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http://www.twainquotes.com/18631212t.html

Does anyone know where this watch is today, or any other information on it? Hank Monk was buried in Carson City, Nevada so perhaps it's somewhere in that town. Anyway, I thought that it was cool. I couldn't figure out why anyone would put it on a postcard though. Maybe people were as crazy about watches as most of us are back when it was printed?
B

"The ceremonies were conducted at Frank Ludlow's daguerrean rooms." -- this sounds like a photography studio (as in daguerreotype, an early photographic process).