Antique 1910s - 1920s Titanic International Mercantile Marine Preferred Stock Certificate 📜 Purple

Preferred Stock in the Titanic's Parent Company? 🚢 Antique 1910s-1920s International Mercantile Marine Certificate

Size: 12" x 8" ~ Engraved, cancelled with punch holes, as issued; two versions, Style 1 No JPM Punch and Style 2 JPM Top. They vary a little one to the next.

🚢 International Mercantile Marine Company

An engraved certificate for 6% Cumulative Preferred Capital Stock of the International Mercantile Marine Company, incorporated under the laws of New Jersey, par value one hundred dollars a share, a large PREFERRED overprint across the body and "CERTIFICATE FOR LESS THAN 100 SHARES" in the corner ornaments. The top vignette shows a four-funnel liner in port among tugs and barges — the ship carries no printed name — and the foot vignette is an allegorical woman with a navigational instrument before a ship. American Bank Note Co. of New York engraved and printed it. The plum-purple scalloped border and the PREFERRED overprint mark it apart from IMM's other stock classes.

🏦 J.P. Morgan's Shipping Trust

J.P. Morgan & Co. announced the founding of International Mercantile Marine on October 1, 1902, capitalized at $120 million, built by bringing four shipping lines under one roof: the White Star Line, brought in by J. Bruce Ismay; the American and Red Star Lines, by Clement Griscom; the Atlantic Transport Line, by Bernard N. Baker; and the Leyland Line, by John Ellerman. White Star was IMM's subsidiary from that day on — its flagship, RMS Titanic, sank on April 15, 1912 — until IMM sold the line in 1926 to the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company for seven million pounds.

💵 Six Percent, Cumulative, Mostly Unpaid

IMM defaulted on its bond interest in late 1914; a receivership followed in 1915, and the company came out the other side in 1916. This certificate's preferred stock paid its promised six percent yearly dividend, cumulative and ahead of the common stock, from 1917 through 1923 — and then not again. By 1928, Time magazine reported IMM owed preferred holders about $40.5 million in unpaid back dividends. That is what "Cumulative" meant in practice for whoever held one of these. In 1931 IMM merged with the Roosevelt Steamship Company; the combined firm was renamed United States Lines in 1943.

✒️ Two Cancellation Styles

These come in two versions. Style 1, "No JPM Punch," carries an ink stamp reading "CANCELLED... J.P.M. & CO." with no perforation through the top vignette — that's J.P. Morgan & Co. the firm, not the man himself, who had died back in 1913. Style 2, "JPM Top," carries a pattern of small perforated dots punched across the top vignette. Registrars vary sheet to sheet - some carry the Central Union Trust Company of New York, a name that bank used from 1918 to 1929. Sheets of both styles run from the late 1910s through the late 1920s.

The story goes that J.P. Morgan himself had a private suite booked for the Titanic's maiden voyage and cancelled at the last minute, staying on at Aix-les-Bains instead.