You will receive the exact certificate pictured
Guaranteed authentic
Over 75 years old
Common stock
September 7, 1937
Issued, canceled
American Bank Note Company
Machine printed signatures
11" (w) by 7" (h)
NA
Historical Context
New York Investors, Inc. was founded as a reorganization of Realty Associates, Inc. - which would become one of the company's subsidiaries. Other subsidiaries included the Prudence Company, the Prudence Bond Corporation and the Allied Owners Corporation.
The company's history included a couple of dubious events...
In 1933, the last of the Brothers Ringling, ill and aging John, who had owned more circuses than any other man on earth and whose fortune was once estimated to be $50,000,000, hobbled into a Federal Court in Brooklyn to testify on the loan that brought him low. The firm that held his note was in bankruptcy. At a prize fight in 1929, Mr. Ringling met William M. Greve, president of New York Investors, Inc., who agreed to lend him $1,700,000. As collateral Mr. Ringling put up one-half of all his circus stocks. Shortly afterward New York Investors sold the Ringling note to the now bankrupt subsidiary. While ill last year, Mr. Ringling had been unable to meet an interest payment of about $18,000. Financier Greve promptly marched out to Coney Island, threatening to attach the circus receipts, Financier Greve demanded, "Put all your assets in a bag and give them to me."
That night, despite a fever of 104, Mr. Ringling was put in a wheelchair and brought to another room. Over the protest of his nurse he signed papers which gave most of his assets to New York Investors. Later he learned that swift Mr. Greve had formed a voting trust to hold the Ringling stocks and manage the circuses, and another trust to hold some of the Titians, Rembrandts, Hals, Rubens from his famed collection in Sarasota, Florida. Mr. Ringling was left with nothing. But he was one of the five voting trustees, and as soon as he could pay off the loan he would get his bag of assets back.
With that little piece of history, it should come as no surprise that the second bit of history involves an indictment. In 1934, Greve and four other company officers the New York Investors, Inc. were charged with fraud. The scheme's goal was to have the company's stock listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Accordingly, in order to obtain this privilege, and as a part of the fraudulent scheme, the company knowingly and intentionally submitted false balance sheets purporting to represent a surplus of assets of the New York Investors, Inc., and subsidiary companies, showing a “surplus” of approximately $35,000,000 by means of an item entitled “Special Surplus Arising From Valuation of Investments” and purporting to be an honest “revaluation” of the assets of the 'companies over and above the value of said assets as they were carried on the books of the New York Investors, Inc. This fraudulent “write up” of the value of investments included also a false “increase” of the value of the stock of one of the largest subsidiary companies and of the value of the real estate owned by the various companies. The indictment also claimed the company knowingly issued false statements of the business condition of the New York Investors, Inc., in an effort to defraud their so-called “victims.” Finally, that the mail was used by sending through it, publications, circulars, etc., containing the alleged fraudulent representations, resulting in mail fraud charges.
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