Stock Certificate for the American Merchants Union Express Company

New York, 1869. New York: 1869.

Full Description:

FARGO, William George. Stock Certificate for the American Merchants Union Express Company. New York: 1869.

Stock certificate signed by "Wm G. Fargo" as president, "E. P. Ross" as Treasurer and "J. N. Knapp" as Secretary, issuing 100 shares of stock in the American Merchants Union Express Company to Gordon McMillan of Cleveland Ohio, share number 5593. New York: 30th day of March 1869.

One sheet (12 1/8 x 9 5/8 inches; 309 x 244 mm). With an engraved vignette, and the Safety & Dispatch" vignette of the dog which was the mascot of American Express. With an (truncated) orange "5 cents' stamp central on the page. With the purple cancellation stamp and cuts on the front. One of the cuts touches Fargo's signature. The transfer form on the verso is blank. Some very minor creasing, otherwise about fine.

"The American Express Company was founded on March 18, 1850, through the consolidation of three companies active in the express transport of goods, valuables, and specie between New York City and Buffalo, New York, and points in the Midwest: (1) Livingston, Fargo & Company (formerly Western Express), founded in 1845 by Henry Wells and William G. Fargo, later of Wells Fargo fame; (2) Wells & Co. (formerly Livingston, Wells & Co.), cofounded by Wells in 1846 and under his ownership at the time of the merger; and (3) Butterfield & Wasson, founded by John Butterfield and James D. Wasson. American Express was at first an unincorporated association of investors headed by Wells as president and Fargo as secretary. By the end of the American Civil War, its business had so flourished, with some 900 offices in 10 states, that it attracted competition in 1866 in the formation of Merchants Union Express Company. For two years the two companies engaged in cutthroat competition and, on the verge of financial exhaustion, finally merged on November 25, 1868, to form the American Merchants Union Express Company, with Fargo succeeding as president. The company was renamed American Express Company in 1873." (Brittanica)

HBS 69417.

$1,100. (Inventory #: 69417)