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Lot
383
Giant Powder Company. Shaded advertising cover in green of the Giant Powder Co. franked with 2¢ Bank Note tied by San Francisco duplex cancel, Very Fine and attractive. Estimate $75 - 100.
The Giant Powder Company, the first commercial manufacturer of dynamite in the United States, began production in San Francisco on March 19, 1868, under exclusive license from Alfred Nobel to produce his new explosive in America.
A year and a half later, on November 26, 1869, an explosion destroyed the entire facility, turning every one of the buildings on the place, and the surrounding fencing, into "hundreds of pieces," according to a newspaper account. The company moved its operations elsewhere, an action that was to be repeated again in the future under similar circumstances, until it moved to its permanent and final home at Point Pinole on San Pablo Bay.
Realized: $125