Sears Merchandise Gift Certificate - American Bank Note Company Specimen Checks

$25 Specimen Gift Certificate printed by American Bank Note Company. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Toronto, Ontario. Front and back shown.

Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck. The company was reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald. Initially, Sears operated as a mail-order catalog company and began opening retail locations in 1925, with its first store in Chicago, Illinois. In 2005, the company was acquired by the management of the American big-box chain Kmart, which later formed Sears Holdings after the merger. Throughout the 1980s, Sears held the title of the largest retailer in the United States. However, Walmart and Kmart surpassed Sears in sales in 1990. In 2018, Sears’ ranking dropped to the 31st-largest retailer in the United States. After experiencing several years of declining sales, Sears’ parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. On January 16, 2019, Sears announced its bankruptcy auction victory, resulting in a restructuring plan that involved shrinking its store network and maintaining a limited presence with 425 stores, including 223 Sears stores.