 Invoice of Joseph S. Wyon, Chief Engraver of Her Majesty's Seals, 287 Regent Street, London. 6th July 1864 for the Great Seal of the Confederate States of America. This Invoice records receipt of £122 10/ (cash received £42, balance by cheque), and is signed by Joseph S. Wyon. This document specifies preparation and delivery of Silver Seal for the Confederate States of America with Ivory handle, Box with spring lock, and Screwpress, plus wax wafers, seal papers, parchment strips and other necessaries for operation of the Seal. Affixed at bottom is a lilac Victoria portrait One Penny affixed INTERNAL REVENUE Stamp.
Accompanying the 252mm by 198mm document is an envelope with another One Penny Revenue stamp and a 7-line calligraphic statement, Received July the 13th 1864/ of J.M. Mason Esqr. the sum of/ Thirty Guineas being the cost of a/ design for the Great Seal of the/ Confederate States of America and/ superintending the execution of it/ £31= 10= 0, J.S. Wyon.
The Great Seal bore the name CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA around an equestrian figure of George Washington with Latin motto, DEO VINDICE, By God the Vindicator. Delayed by the Union blockade, the Great Seal was never used and is known today through a handful of electrotype impressions made at the time that are a significant collectible in their own right. The cataloguer of the Garrett Sale, Part IV, added to his description of an electrotype copy of the Seal the text of a handwritten letter from the Wyons acknowledging their manufacture of the seal after a query in March 1874, ''we hereby certify that the said impression is a faithful reproduction of the identical Seal engraved in 1864 by our predecessor, the late Joseph S. Wyon Esq. for James M. Mason Esq. who was at that time in London representing the interests of the Confederate States of which the Seal referred to was designed as the symbolical emblem of sovereignty.''
This original document is a significant relic of the Confederacy and its optimistic yet unsuccessful diplomatic mission to Europe. Superb condition and unique. Certainly of the utmost importance.
Ex E.O. & P.D. Sang Foundation Collection, Part V (Sotheby's, New York, December 1981, lot 1097).
James Murray Mason (1798-1871) was a Virginia legislator and Democratic Congressman from the Old Dominion. He was appointed a Confederate diplomatic commissioner to England by President Jefferson Davis in 1861. He and CSA representative to France John Slidell were seized on the high seas from the British ship Trent by the Union navy. But for the personal intervention of Prince Consort Albert, this act would have precipitated a war between the Union and Britain. Mason was imprisoned at Boston before release as part of the settlement of the Trent Affair in 1862. This time he made it to London, where he ably advocated Southern interests but was unable to achieve recognition for the Confederacy. After the war he lived in Canada until his return to Richmond in 1868.
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