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The First Printed Share Certificate: An Important Link in Financial History*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

John P. Shelton
John P. Shelton
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Finance, University of California, Los Angeles
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Abstract

To stimulate further research in the history of business instruments, the Review offers this illustrated record of a search for the earliest evidence of printed corporate securities.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1965 , pp. 391 - 402
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1965

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References

1 Gras, N. S. B., The Massachusetts First National Bank of Boston, 1784–1934 (Cambridge, Mass., 1937), pp. 231Google Scholar, 232, 236, illustration for Plate 1 appears opposite p. 538.

2 See, e.g.: Scott, William R., The Constitution and Finance of English, Scottish, and Irish Joint-Stock Companies to 1720 (2 vols., Cambridge, 1910–1912)Google Scholar; Donald, M. B., Elizabethan Copper: The History of the Company of Mines Royal, 1568–1605 (London, 1955)Google Scholar; Donald, M. B., Elizabethan Monopolies: The History of the Company of Mineral and Battery Works from 1565 to 1604 (Edinburgh, 1961)Google Scholar; Willan, T. S., The Early History of the Russia Company, 1553–1603 (Manchester, 1956)Google Scholar; Dewing, A. S., A Study of Corpo rate Securities (New York, 1934)Google Scholar; and Morgan, E. V.'s book on the London Stock Exchange, The Stock Exchange: History and Functions (London, 1962).Google Scholar

3 The Hudson's Bay Company issued no printed share certificates until 1863. This information and quotations supplied to author by the company's secretary, A. R. Huband in letter of February 21, 1963. Also relevant is a letter from the current secretary of The Bank of England to this writer, February 26, 1963: “So far as The Bank of England are concerned I can say that at no time were the holders of the capital stock (known as Bank Stock) issued with certificates of title. Moreover, the issue of certificates by the bank for the very many other stocks managed by them as registrars is a comparatively modern practice which has grown up only within the last 100 years.”

4 “The Transfer of Stock,” in Du Bois, Armand B., The English Business Company after the Bubble Act, 1720–1800 (New York, 1938), pp. 358–62Google Scholar, quotation from pp. 359–60.

5 Larson, Henrietta M., “A Medieval Swedish Mining Company,” Journal of Economic and Business History, vol. II (May, 1930), pp. 546–47.Google Scholar The history of this corporation with greater detail on its shareholding practices is contained in: Tunberg, Sven, Stora Kopparbergets historia: Förberedande undersökningar (Uppsala, 1922)Google Scholar, Söderberg, Tom, Stora Kopparberget under medeltiden och Gustav Vasa (Stockholm, 1932)Google Scholar, and Stora Kopparberg: Six Hundred Years of industrial Enterprise (Stockholm, 1960).

6 B. Thelin to author, October 4, 1963.

7 The history of this firm and its shareholding policies is covered in: Clemensson, Gustaf, Klippans Pappersbruk, 1573–1923 (Lund, 1923), esp. pp. 83ff.Google Scholar

8 La Force, J. Clayburn, “Royal Joint Stock Companies in Spain, 1700–1800,” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, Second Series, vol. I (Spring-Summer, 1963), pp. 232–49.Google Scholar

9 Information and illustrations for Plates 4 and 5 supplied by personal correspondence with Eduardo de Carvajal, Presidente, Düstre Colegio de Agentes de Cambio y Bolsa de Madrid, April 15, 1963.

10 The certificate illustrated in Plate 6 was issued by the Hoorn Chamber of the Dutch East India Company on December 8, 1606. It is in the possession of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange and has previously been published in The Analysts Journal, vol. XV (August, 1959), p. 17. An earlier certificate, issued September 27, 1606, by the Amsterdam Chamber is reproduced and annotated in Van Dillen's, J. G., Het oudste aandeelhoudersregister van de Kamer Amsterdam der Oost-Indische Compagnie (The Hague, 1958), pp. 37ff.Google Scholar In printing, the Amsterdam and Hoorn certificates are identical except for the substitution of one city's name for the other on line 2.

11 Personal correspondence with Professor Stockder, May, 1963.

12 (The Hague, 1958).

13 See Professor Stockder's articles, “Shares” and “Stock,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 1961 ed., vol. 20, pp. 473–74, and vol. 21, pp. 415–18.

14 Van Dillen, Het oudste aandeelhoudregister, pp. 37n–38n.

15 Ibid., p. 27.

16 Ibid., p. 32.

17 Thus far the author of this paper has been unable to find evidence of such certificates so no evaluation is offered as to their status as a first printed share certificate.

18 Van Dillen, Het oudste aandeelhoudregister, p. 30.

19 Kellenbenz, Hermann (trans, and ed.), Confusion de Confusiones by Joseph de la Vega, 1688: Portions Descriptive of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (Publication No. 13 of The Kress Library of Business and Economics, Boston, 1957), pp. 13n, xv.Google Scholar

20 E. J. J. van der Heijden, Handboek voor de Naamlooze Vennootschap, p. 1, cited in letter to author from J. G. N. de Hoop, secretary, and V. J. N. de Graaf, director, Vereeniging Voor Den Effectenhandel, Amsterdam, May 7, 1962.

21 Kellenbenz (trans, and ed.), Confusiones, pp. xii-xiii, xviii.

22 Though the evidence presented in this paper is not conclusive, the views gain some support from the fact that many other experts and sources besides those cited in the body of the text were contacted without finding any sounder claim than here presented as to the first share certificate. Though mentioning their names cannot be interpreted as evidence that they approve the conclusions in this paper, a partial list of authorities contacted (but not cited in the text) includes: the London Stock Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange, the British Museum, the Library of Congress, the American Bank Note Company, and Profs. A. H. Cole, R. Ashton, G. Ohlin, and W. Scoville.