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Puget Sound and Alaska Steamship Co. signed by Wm. Rockefeller - Stock Certificate

Inv# AG1981   Stock
Puget Sound and Alaska Steamship Co. signed by Wm. Rockefeller - Stock Certificate
Country: United States
State(s): Alaska
Washington
Years: 1890

Stock issued to and signed on back by William Rockefeller. Nice! Rare!

William Avery Rockefeller Jr. (1841-1922) William was a cofounder with his older brother John D. Rockefeller of the prominent United States Rockefeller family. William Avery Rockefeller, Jr. was the son of William Avery Rockefeller, Sr. and Eliza (Davison) Rockefeller. He was born in Richford, New York and in 1853 his family moved to Strongsville, Ohio. He was to later build an ostentatious mansion called "Rockwood Hall", now demolished, which was subsequently located within the Rockefeller family estate of "Pocantico", in Westchester County New York. In 1865, he entered the oil business by starting a refinery. In 1867, his brother's company, Rockefeller & Andrews, absorbed this refinery, and in 1870, the company became Standard Oil. William Rockefeller built Standard Oil's vast export business in New York and was responsible for that entire operation. In 1872, he played an instrumental role in settling the battles between the refiner's combinations and the crude oil producers. During this time, he formed close alliances with many of the East's most important oil men such as Henry H. Rogers and Charles Pratt, eventually bringing them into Standard Oil. William was a trustee of the Standard Oil Trust until its dissolution in 1890. Rockefeller, along with Henry Rogers, devised a deceptive scheme which made them a profit of $36 million. First, they purchased Anaconda Properties from Marcus Daly for $39 million, with the understanding that the check was to be deposited in the bank and remain there for a definite time (National City Bank was run by Rockefeller’s friends). Rogers and Rockefeller then set up a paper organization known as the Amalgamated Copper Company, with their own clerks as dummy directors, saying the company was worth $75 million. They then had the Amalgamated Copper Company buy Anaconda from them for $75 million in capital stock, which was conveniently printed for the purpose. Then, they borrowed $39 million from the bank using Amalgamated Copper as collateral. They paid back Daly for Anaconda and sold $75 million worth of stock in Amalgamated stock to the public. They paid back the bank's $39 million and had a profit of $36 million in cash. So, by deceiving Daly, the bank, and the public, Rockefeller and Rogers had made Amalgamated Copper a $36 million profit before the company was even operating. Amalgamated controlled the mines of Butte, Montana, and later became the Anaconda Copper Company. Married to Almira Geraldine Goodsell, he built up the National City Bank of New York, now part of Citigroup. He had 6 children. Upon his death in 1922, he left a fortune estimated at between $150 million and $200 million.

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Condition: Excellent

A stock certificate is issued by businesses, usually companies. A stock is part of the permanent finance of a business. Normally, they are never repaid, and the investor can recover his/her money only by selling to another investor. Most stocks, or also called shares, earn dividends, at the business's discretion, depending on how well it has traded. A stockholder or shareholder is a part-owner of the business that issued the stock certificates.

Item ordered may not be exact piece shown. All original and authentic.