Bank of United States & Bankus Corporation - 1920's-30's dated Dual Stock Certificates - Quite Rare Format

Two stocks bound together at the left. Western Bank Note & Eng. Co. Unusual and Quite Rare!!! Important! The Bank of United States, founded by Joseph S. Marcus in 1913 at 77 Delancey Street in New York City, was a New York City bank that failed in 1931. The bank run on its Bronx branch is said to have started the collapse of banking during the Great Depression.

The Bank of United States was chartered on June 23, 1913 with a capital of $100,000 and a surplus of $50,000. The bank was founded by Joseph S. Marcus, a former president of the Public Bank, also of Delancey Street. Marcus, who was responsible for the building up of Public Bank, started the new bank, with the backing of several well-known financiers, because of a disagreement with other members of the management. Though the directors of Public Bank objected to the choice of name, arguing that "ignorant foreigners would believe that the United States government was interested in this bank and that it was a branch of the United States Treasury in Washington", the name was approved and the bank came into being. The use of such an appellation was outlawed in 1926 but did not apply retroactively.

The founder, Joseph S. Marcus, was a Jewish immigrant to the United States. Born in the town of Telz in Germany in 1862, he went to school in Essen and immigrated to the United States at the age of 17 and worked his way up from being a tailor, to a garment industry business, to a banker. He founded the Public Bank in 1906 and the Bank of United States in 1913. He died on July 3, 1927. He was also a philanthropist known for his donations to the Beth Israel Hospital and for the Hebrew Association for the Blind. His son, Bernard K. Marcus, a graduate of Worcester Academy and Columbia University, joined the bank as cashier in 1913 and became vice president in 1918. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_United_States

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