John - Thank you very much for your helpful and insightful reply. You helped me identify the comm’r signature - it is Wm. Shields - and it matches his signature found on other Missouri Scrip notes. Re the print and paper quality: This bond’s vignette design is one of the more unique, detailed examples I’ve seen on a Civil War bond with coupons (though I can see how the print itself could be the result of a wooden engraving device); it is printed on creme paper, with an ornate border design similar to another State of Missouri bond printed by the Republican Print Company. The large vignette is made up of the Missouri 2 bears circular emblem surrounded by, on left, a home scene under tall trees with 2 men with scythes in the foreground clearing a crop field, bundled crops and various agricultural tools, and on right, below a steam locomotive crossing a bridge, a steamboat in the background with a docked ship, barrel, bale, corn plants, anchor and other sea faring items on land - representing Missouri’s trade strengths at the time. In fact, I liked this vignette so much, that I thought its design was the real interest and value of this bond before I learned about its place in history, as an instrument of the financial conspiracy that transformed Missouri’s social landscape and character (and read an researched account of Jackson’s character as an ‘inveterate conniver and social climber’ with unchecked influence on Missouri’s banks that compares him, soberly in my mind, to the Madoffs and banks too big to fail of our time - off soapbox).