Page & Shaw, Incorporated
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Product Details
Company | Page & Shaw, Incorporated |
Certificate Type | Class A Stock |
Date Issued | September 27, 1929 |
Canceled | No |
Printer | Goes |
Signatures | Hand signed |
Approximate Size |
10 3/4" (w) by 8 1/2" (h) |
Product Images |
Show the exact certificate you will receive |
Authentic | Yes |
Additional Details | NA |
Historical Context
Page & Shaw was founded as a small candy shop on West Street in Boston in 1887, and was eventually incorporated on March 1, 1912. The company's plant was located in Ames Street in Cambridge.
A 1935 Time Magazine article profiled the company and one of their most ardent customers - Diamond Jim Brady...
So inordinately fond of sweets was the late teetotaling James Buchanan ("Diamond Jim") Brady that he was known to eat a pound of candy in five minutes. One day he was given a box of chocolates made by a small Boston confectionery named Page & Shaw. "It's the best goddam candy I ever put in my mouth!" cried "Diamond Jim," who vowed he would thereafter buy no candy but Page & Shaw's. Later, according to his biographers, he offered the struggling little candy company $150,000 without interest.
Page & Shaw did not remain obscure for long. Styling itself "the only international candy company," it opened branches in England, France and Canada, a chain of swank stores from Manhattan to San Francisco. By 1924 its sales reached a peak of 2,200,000 lb. per year. Then troubles came to Page & Shaw. Sales slumped, cash dwindled. Control had fallen into the hands of a Boston lawyer named Otis Emerson Dunham. Promoter Dunham shocked the Boston Better Business Bureau by giving away one share of common stock with every $2 worth of candy. In 1930 Promoter Dunham and two stockbrokers were found guilty of conspiracy in floating $2,000,000 worth of Page & Shaw stock. According to the prosecution, half of the money received from selling the stock went to the brokers. Otis Dunham was sentenced to two years in a Massachusetts house of correction. Before his sentence began, Page & Shaw quietly toppled into bankruptcy.
Last week, firmly convinced that he had been victimized, Otis Dunham emerged from retirement to file in Massachusetts a damage suit against six of his stock-selling cronies. Claiming that the brokers had forced their way into the company in 1929 and "caused his name to be forged on papers and letters," he demanded $1,500,000 damages and complete vindication of blame for the shady stock deals. Page & Shaw has never recovered from the Dunham spree. It still operates a factory in Cambridge, but all its retail stores have been closed. Most of its candy is sold today through drug stores and specialty shops.
The company was later acquired by Daggett Chocolates.
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Additional Information
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