Featured Specimen stocks and bonds ... and a little history

Thanks for giving the thread a bump, James. I have very little Northern BNC material, but I'll keep you in mind. If you have any more background on the company, I encourage you to post it here.

I picked up representative specimens from a couple more obscure companies recently:

Quayle & Son - Oliver Quayle started this small engraving firm, probably in the late 1920s. They moved from Albany to New York City in 1934. Quayle printed some stock certificates and depression scrip, as well as engraved tickets for the 1932 and 1936 Democratic National Convention. By 1945, Northern Bank Note Co. had apparently obtained its printing plates.







New York Bank Note Co. - Formerly Kendall Bank Note Co., the company changed its name to NYBNC in 1888. Owner George Kendall was a small but irascible competitor against American Bank Note. When ABNC was unable to purchase NYBNC they did all they could to force it out of business. By the 1920s NYBNC was reduced to printing stocks and bonds for minor companies. By WWII the company had ceased operations.

 

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I acquired some new specimens over that last year and a half!

 

These last two were printed by a company that was unknown to me -- Schwabacher-Frey Co. of San Francisco. The frames on these are definitely engraved, but the central vignettes are lithographed. It's possible the company sub-contracted the engraved work to Hamilton Bank Note or one of the smaller security engraving firms, then did the rest of the work in-house. What became of this company is a mystery, but it appears they were most active in the 1940s.

 

Those colors are amazing

 

At long last, I finally obtained a specimen from the elusive British American Bank Note Company! This security printer was one of the oldest banknote firms in North America. Although very prolific, it's unclear what became of their archival specimens -- they are very hard to find in the secondary market and I was happy to add this one to my collection.

British American Bank Note Co. - BABNC was founded in 1866 by engraver Wm. C. Smillie and survived more than 130 years as an independent business. They printed a wide range of high-quality intaglio products: stocks, bonds, stamps, and currency, including a large number of Canadian chartered bank notes and some for other nations. In 1999, they were acquired by Giesecke+Devrient, which renamed the company BA International Inc. In 2012, BA International closed shop; it's former plant on Gladstone Avenue in Ottawa is now occupied by Canadian Bank Note Co.