Jack London

Very attractive check drawn on the Merchants National Bank of San Francisco, California, payable to “O’Connor Moffatt & Co” in the amount of $16.95 and signed by author Jack London. Dated November 15, 1910, the year in which he published Burning Daylight which, although largely unknown to modern readers, was one of the best selling books of 1910, and it was the author’s best selling book while he was alive. In very good condition with cancellation stamps.

The payee on the check, O’Connor, Moffatt & Company in San Francisco, became Macy’s, one of the most important department stores in North America in the early 20th century, and in 1945 Macy’s bought the company in their westward expansion. Two years later, O’Connor Moffatt stores, including the landmark Union Square store that opened in 1866, were converted to Macy’s after a survey indicated that San Franciscans would welcome the name. 

Jack London (1876-1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone. He is best remembered as the author of The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush. He also wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as The Pearls of Parlay and The Heathen, and of the San Francisco Bay area in The Sea Wolf.