The Jeremy Collins share certificate collection
At a recent seminar of the Society of Automotive Historians in Britain (the SAHB), Richard Roberts (who is also a board member of the SAHB), was able to celebrate the receipt of an exceptionally generous donation from Jeremy Collins, an SAHB member, of over 400 motoring share certificates. Jeremy has decided to sell his non-motoring certificates at auction but wished to donate the motoring ones to the Richard Roberts Archive so that they would be accessible in perpetuity to researchers. The RRA is completely independent of the SAHB but has very close links to it; three SAHB board members are also trustees of the RRA: Richard, Craig Horner and Peter Moss.
The certificates are magnificent. They come from Europe, the USA and the UK, and date from the earliest days of motoring (1896 is the earliest we have found so far) to very nearly the present day.
They are without doubt a form of advertising – because they promote, in the beautiful graphic illustrations printed upon them, the products of their companies.
Here are some examples…
This certificate is difficult to date: the handwritten date is either from 1904 or, more probably, from 1914. It is for the British subsidiary of the German Daimler company but uses the name given to the cars from 1901 onwards, Mercedes, after the daughter of Emil Jellinek, an Austrian entrepreneur who promoted Daimler cars among the highest circles of society. He guaranteed to sell many of the new and advanced Daimlers of 1901 if they were renamed in this way. Daimler merged with Benz in 1926, and the car’s name became Mercedes-Benz – but the company is still called Daimler-Benz to this day.
This Italian certificate from 1911 has a relatively unremarkable illustration of a motor car – until it is inspected more closely. The driver (on the right of the car, as with most Italian cars until well after World War II), is accompanied by a passenger who seems confident to indicate that the car will be turning right at the otherwise confusing junction. No wonder: this company manufactured automatic signalling machines – not to inform following drivers but to direct the driver of this vehicle as to which way to turn. It used a continuous tape running through a box, seen here on the right of the certificate. A primitive but possibly effective early predecessor of the “Satnav”.