Definition
A phrase indorsed by the payee on a promissory note, by which the indorser warrants to subsequent holders that the note is genuine, presently due, and collectible—that is, that the maker is solvent and that no defense exists that would bar recovery on the instrument. The indorsement operates as a guaranty of both the validity and the enforceability of the note, going beyond the ordinary indorser's engagement (which guarantees only that the instrument will be paid upon proper presentment and dishonor) to affirmatively represent the note's current collectible status.
The closely related phrase WARRANT THIS NOTE GOOD, indorsed by the payee, carries substantially the same legal effect: the indorser becomes liable as a guarantor of payment rather than merely as a secondary party contingent on presentment, demand, and notice of dishonor.
Common Confusion
WARRANT THE WITHIN NOTE DUE AND COLLECTIBLE vs. ORDINARY INDORSEMENT: A standard blank or special indorsement makes the indorser liable only upon the conditions of presentment, dishonor, and timely notice. The warranty indorsement at issue here collapses those conditions. The indorser who writes this phrase is essentially a guarantor: the holder may proceed directly against the indorser on proof of non-payment, without the ritual of formal presentment and protest. Researchers working with nineteenth-century note litigation must take care not to treat this phrase as a routine indorsement; the conditional liability structure that governs most indorser cases does not apply.
WARRANT THE WITHIN NOTE DUE AND COLLECTIBLE vs. WARRANT THIS NOTE GOOD: The two phrases appear in the same case literature and historical dictionaries in close proximity and serve overlapping functions, but they are not identical instruments. "Due and collectible" speaks to present maturity and the maker's present ability to pay. "Good" is somewhat broader and less temporally specific, functioning more squarely as a guaranty of the note's face value. In practice, courts treated both as guaranty indorsements bypassing the ordinary conditions of secondary liability, but the precise scope of the warranty could be litigated on the exact language used.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in nineteenth-century American commercial and negotiable instruments litigation. Researchers searching Law Mind sources for note litigation from that period—particularly Vermont and New York reports, where the cited authorities (3 Vt. 60; 14 Wend. 231) originate—should recognize it as a guaranty-of-collectibility indorsement rather than classifying it under the general law of indorsers.
The practical research trap: digests and indices of the period often file these cases under "Indorsement" or "Guaranty" without a consistent subheading for warranty indorsements of this specific type. A researcher looking only under "Warranty" in the commercial law sense will miss most of the relevant authority. The correct search path runs through negotiable instruments → indorsement → guaranty of payment or guaranty of collectibility.
Because the phrase conditions the indorser's liability on the note being "due," questions of maturity date and acceleration were frequently litigated alongside the warranty claim. Cases involving this indorsement often also address what it means for a note to be "collectible"—specifically, whether the maker's insolvency discovered after indorsement defeats the warranty or merely goes to damages. That sub-issue connects this term to the broader Law Mind corpus on guaranty and suretyship.
The related indorsement WARRANT THIS NOTE GOOD (14 Wend. 231) is referenced by Rapalje & Lawrence in the same entry, which signals that practitioners and courts of the era treated the two formulations as members of the same doctrinal category. Cross-searching both phrases in historical case reporters will produce a more complete picture than relying on either alone.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence is the sole historical dictionary source to record this term, and its treatment is compressed: the phrase is identified by case citation (3 Vt. 60) as an indorsement on a promissory note, placed in immediate proximity to WARRANT THIS NOTE GOOD (14 Wend. 231) and a discussion of warrants of distress and the general definition of warrant (71 N.Y. 371, 376). The editorial compression reflects the dictionary's characteristic method—citation-heavy, definition-light—and means that the substantive doctrine must be reconstructed from the cited cases rather than from the dictionary itself.
No other standard historical legal dictionary of the period (Bouvier, Black's first or second edition, Abbott) carries a dedicated entry for this precise phrase, which suggests it was treated by contemporaries as a specialized commercial formula rather than a term of general legal art. Its absence from those sources is itself informative: researchers should not expect cross-dictionary support and should go directly to the Vermont and New York reporters identified by Rapalje & Lawrence.
The placement of this entry within Rapalje & Lawrence's broader warrant cluster—alongside warrant of distress and the general warrant definition—appears to be alphabetical coincidence rather than doctrinal grouping. The commercial indorsement and the warrant of distress are unrelated instruments.
Jurisdictional Note
The cited authorities are drawn from Vermont (3 Vt. 60) and New York (14 Wend. 231), reflecting the heavy volume of commercial note litigation in those jurisdictions in the early-to-mid nineteenth century. The doctrine was not peculiar to those states, but researchers working with notes from other jurisdictions should verify whether local courts applied the same guaranty-indorsement analysis or assimilated the phrase to ordinary indorser liability under that state's commercial law.