Beautiful stocks and bonds

King's Department Stores, Inc. This was a department store chain that was bought out by Ames in 1984.
Dated 1965. 10 shares @ $1 per.

 

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I wonder why the lady holds a caduceus. Department stores aren't really much known for their medical capabilities.

 

Earlier this year we were playing match-up with vignettes that appear on both stocks and banknotes. I recently discovered an amazing online collection and have been sifting through it slowly, noticing all kinds of connections.

If you make a trip to Ottawa you should definitely visit the Bank of Canada Museum. It's National Currency Collection is unsurpassed with a number of Canadian banknotes that are unique. Fortunately, the Museum has scanned it's entire collection and made it publicly accessible online at www.bankofcanadamuseum.ca/collection/browse/view/9/note. The collection numbers in the thousands and I haven't even surfed through a third of it yet (but I plan to!). If you have any interest in Canadian paper money -- or even just the art of bank note engraving -- spend a few hours clicking through these images. You will not be disappointed.

A great many Canadian notes were produced by American Bank Note Co. or it's subsidiary, Canadian Bank Note Co. So it's not too surprising that they used some of the same vignettes on their stocks and bonds. Here are a handful of the match-ups I found in my collection and I continue to find more...











I matched the front AND back on this one:

 

Thanks for the interesting post and the link to the Canadian Mint.
It's going to be a real time burner.

 

Wow, Those are incredible works of Engraving Art. Very nice!

 

It is the symbol of Hermes and Commerce, which is why it is on so many currency notes and stocks. It is now *incorrectly* associated with medicine in the US, which managed to mangle it and the Rod of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing and medicine... the stocks have it right. Medical profession has it wrong...

P.S. Do love the engraving on these stocks... they are like currency, only BIGGER...

 

A few more Canadian match-ups, then!







Note the globe is in a different position on the note, featuring Canada. Also a winged wheel!

 

Old Canadian banknotes are amazing but boy are they expensive!

 

They are expensive -- which is why I don't own any. But I'm extremely grateful to be able to look through the BofC Museum collection.

Here's a few more matches and then I think I'm done ...

 

I only have 3 Canadian banknotes, but they are from Canada Bank of Commerce. They're the most expensive notes in my collection.

 

I feel like the reverse are probably on stock certificates, they look one could replace the bank seal with a company logo.

 

Those notes are the Canadian equals of the 1896 US Educational series. I'm absolutely in awe of them -- if I could have only one Canadian banknote it would be that $20.

As far as I know, the figures have never appeared on any other security, but now I'll be looking carefully.

 

Just to round things off ... that series also has a $50 and $100. (These are actually from the earlier 1917 series.)




Imho, The Canadian Bank of Commerce issued the most attractive currency in the country.

And did anyone notice the cadeuceus on each note?

 

There are apparently 2 versions, a large size and a small size of each of those. I have the small because the large are wayyyy expensive.

 

This reminded me of a question Midas1 brought up earlier that was never quite answered: How were engravings reduced so precisely? I'll attach an image as an example. You can see that Mercury and the man with the wheel were both reduced from full-sized vignettes above, to about 90 and 80 percent, respectively, on the Pennsylvania Railroad vignette.



I asked around and learned there are two ways this could have been done.

One would have been to use a pantograph machine. This is a mechanical device that can be used to reduce or enlarge drawings. However, in the bank note industry this was most often used with letter engraving, with a milling machine attached to the pantograph. Pre-designed typestyle forms could be sized to fit whatever product was being engraved. But this would be a difficult method to use when trying to reproduce fine lines on a portrait or vignette.

More likely the process was partially photographic. A photographic reduction was used to create an image of the figure, which was then etched onto a steel plate. The engraver would still have to touch it up by hand because the finest lines always drop out in photos. This process worked best when the reductions were no less than 65 percent. Smaller than that and the lines become so fine that many don't reproduce at all, at which point it's more practical to engrave a new, smaller image by hand.

Now days all this can be done with computer software and ultra-high resolution scans.

 

Two new ones arrived yesterday. These I found interesting because they are by a couple obscure bank note companies. Bolsa Chica Oil was printed by Jeffries Bank Note Co. This L.A.-based company is still in business, though the quality of their engravings has declined in recent decades. This stock was an early one, showing their work at its peak. The Southern Canada Power stock was produced by British American Bank Note in Ottawa, Canada. BABN is also still around and has always done excellent work.

 

That man with the wheel represents Progress... shown on one of my favorite foreign notes...

 

That is a nice vignette, isn't it? Seems to pop up nearly as often as The Reapers. That looks like some cold work, rolling that wheel with the wind blowing up his ... kilt.

Here is Security-Columbian Bank Note's version of the Wheel on a Wallace-Murray Corp. stock certificate. Along with a rubber stamp I haven't seen before.

 

I scan the "pictures" that I like and print them on quality paper. I then cut them to fit a small frame and use them for decorations. Sorry the photo below is so poor. Actual picture is much darker. This one is of early Baltimore harbor.

 

Interesting shot. I can't tell whether this is a scan of an engraving or a photo. What's the connection to stocks and bonds?