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I just thought this to be a little bit of historical irony: Kirtland Safety Society notes
One of the tangible connections from this episode to the present are the notes that were printed at the time. Some church leaders encouraged people to hold onto these notes as they said that someday they would have value again. While the notes never regained their face value, by the late 1800s they had become collector’s items.[14] A Kirtland Safety Society (KSS) note bearing Joseph Smith’s signature can be quite valuable; for example, in an auction in March 2006, a $100 note sold for $11,500.[15]
Joseph Smith personally signed each Kirtland Safety Society Banknote. After the bank crashed in 1837, the notes were financially worthless to the Saints who bought them.
Some Saints, (those who followed Brigham Young) held unto the notes just for historical reasons. The irony of this entire situation is that the only notes from failed banks of the 1837 crash that have any redeemable value are those of the KSS.
While sort of a cool way of looking at it. The notes only have value because they were signed by a famous American “prophet” that failed in his promotion of the bank. So it is kind of hard to make that a really great faith-promoting story about Joseph Smith’s gift for prophecy. LOL MWallace, that is fascinating. Perhaps Joseph Smith’s prophecies regarding the bank were fulfilled in God’s mysterious ways! You know, Martin Harris had advised JS to back all of the notes in silver or gold as the financial industry was extremely fragile at the time. The Saints in Kirtland, had land and industry, but too little capitol to accrue gold and silver. Joseph Smith had only his name and he signed each and every bank note.
The moral of this lesson is: Sometimes our good name is worth more than silver or gold. Those stupid $3.00 bank notes signed by JS as worth much, much more than silver or gold coin. Remember that in the end, our good name is our true treasure. Those bank note went through the collapse of the KSS, the extermination of the Mormons, the Civil War, the WWI, the Great Depression and WW2 and those darn bank notes appreciated more than currency, more than silver, more than gold.
MWallace57 wrote:The moral of this lesson is: Sometimes our good name is worth more than silver or gold.
What a great lesson to pull from those failed events! Thanks for sharing that thought!! I like that moral.
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