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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Jim Goodykoontz, post: 10232705, member: 82566&quot;]that has occurred to me.&nbsp; but, if it is &quot;PAID&quot; why the date which is stamped both on the canvas and in the leather?&nbsp; it just seems an odd place to put a &quot;PAID&quot; statement.&nbsp; i&#039;m not saying it isn&#039;t PAID, just that it doesn&#039;t make a lot of sense.&nbsp; also, why the date?&nbsp; i can say for certain, statements of patent at this time were put on the things that were patented in order to uphold the rights of the patent.&nbsp; that&#039;s why the patent date appears on a pair of Levi&#039;s, for instance.&nbsp; if you look at the bag Roaring20s uploaded, which is very similar, but still different,&nbsp; there&#039;s a patent number stamped in between where the handle is attached to the bag.</p><p><br /></p><p>the Levi&#039;s patent is instructive in this case too.&nbsp; what Levi Strauss actually patented in 1873 was the use of copper rivets at points of high stress on a pair of work pants.&nbsp; no one else could use copper rivets for 20 years.&nbsp; there were other manufacturers in SF competing with Levi&#039;s but they had to use other materials for this same function for 20 years.&nbsp; Boss of the Road was one such manufacturer.&nbsp; they eventually went out of business because people just thought the Levi&#039;s were better.&nbsp; they definitely looked better.&nbsp;&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>like i say, i don&#039;t know whether it&#039;s &quot;PAID&quot; or &quot;PATD&quot;&nbsp; but it would appear this bag was actually used by Wells Fargo.&nbsp; and, in truth, you can&#039;t be sure the other bags you see online that purport to be Wells Fargo bags were actually used by Wells Fargo or just stamped with a logo sometime after the fact in order to add value to the item.&nbsp; in the 19th century there were a lot of express companies.&nbsp; most of them are forgotten.&nbsp; stenciling WELLS FARGO onto an old mailbag 50 or 60 years ago would be one way to add value to an otherwise not so valuable thing.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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