Service Merchandise Company, Inc. - Specimen Stock Certificate
Inv# SE4033 Specimen Stock
New York
Tennessee
Specimen Stock printed by American Bank Note Company.
Service Merchandise was a retail chain of catalog showrooms carrying jewelry, toys, sporting goods and electronics. The company, which first began in 1934 as a five-and-dime store, was in existence for 68 years before ceasing operations in 2002.
Service Merchandise's history can be traced to 1934, to a small five-and-dime store founded by Harry and Mary Zimmerman in the town of Pulaski, Tennessee. After leaving the wholesale business, they opened Service Merchandise, Inc., the first of what evolved into a chain of catalog showrooms. It opened in 1960 at 309 Broadway in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. During the 1970s and 1980s, Service Merchandise was a leading catalog-showroom retailer. At its peak, the company achieved more than $4 billion in annual sales. As the company expanded, it began to open showrooms nationwide, mostly in the vicinity of major shopping malls, which were in vogue in the 1970s. In the early 1980s, the Service Merchandise headquarters moved from Nashville to nearby Brentwood, Tennessee, becoming one of the first businesses to plant itself in the area that is now known as Cool Springs. In May 1985, Service Merchandise acquired the H. J. Wilson Co. for approximately $200 million. Raymond Zimmerman, the CEO, was attracted to Wilson's stores to gain a stronger foothold in the Sun Belt states. Several of these Wilson's locations included an off-priced apparel department of about 15,000 square feet (1,400 m2). Service Merchandise also had other wholly owned subsidiaries featuring retail stores, such as Zim's Jewelers, HomeOwners Warehouse (later called Mr. HOW Warehouse), The Lingerie Store and The Toy Store. Service Merchandise was a prominent sponsor of Wheel of Fortune. The retailer also provided some of the prizes on CBS's The Price Is Right, Classic Concentration on NBC, and Shop 'til You Drop and Shopping Spree, both on The Family Channel. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_Merchandise
Stock and Bond Specimens are made and usually retained by a printer as a record of the contract with a client, generally with manuscript contract notes such as the quantity printed. Specimens are sometimes produced for use by the printing company's sales team as examples of the firm’s products. These are usually marked "Specimen" and have no serial numbers.
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