Wells Henry

1863 American Express Signed Capital stock certificate



American Express Company Stock Certificate. Single page 12" x 8.25". Signed by John Butterfield, "Henry Wells" as President, "Alex Holland" as Treasurer and "Wm G. Fargo" as Secretary, 1p, New York. Dated "First day of April, 1863" . Certificate No. 800. Issue of 6000 shares of Capital Stock; each share was worth $500. Issued to "John L. Schoolcraft of Albany", for "Five Shares". Series of small holes along fold lines, with tiny tears to outer edges. Assignment template on verso.



A handsome engraved stock certificate from the era of intense competition amongst the 3 rivaling financial and express transport institutions, and issued 3 years before the destined merger. The catalyst at the time was the discovery of gold in California in 1849, which prompted a huge spike in the demand for cross-country shipping. Wells and Fargo decided to take advantage of these great opportunities. Combine this with California regulating neither the banking nor the express industry, leaving both fields wide open, created a period ripe for chaos. Anyone with a wagon and team of horses could open an express company; and all it took to open a bank was a safe and a room to keep it in. Speculation in the California banking system became so rampant that by 1855 the California banking system collapsed.



American Express started out in 1850 as a freight and valuables delivery service for the rapidly expanding nation. The company started as an express mail business in Buffalo, New York. It was founded as a joint stock corporation by the merger of the express companies owned by Henry Wells (Wells & Company), William G. Fargo (Livingston, Fargo & Company), and John Warren Butterfield (Wells, Butterfield & Company, the successor earlier in 1850 of Butterfield, Wasson & Company). (Wells and Fargo also started Wells Fargo & Co in 1852 when Butterfield and other directors objected to the proposal that American Express extend its operations to California).



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.



An attractive, early important stock certificate issued as No.800 for 5 shares. By 1903, the American Express company had assets of some $28 million.



This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.





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