Product Details
Certificate TypeCumulative Participating Preferred SharesDate IssuedAugust 25, 1922CanceledYesPrinterGeorge H. Ellis CompanySignaturesHand signedApproximate Size13 1/4" (w) by 10 1/4" (h)Additional DetailsNA
Historical Context
In 1906 the first "W. T. Grant Co. 25 Cent Store" opened in Lynn, Massachusetts, founded by William Thomas Grant. Like many national chain stores and some larger department stores, Grant arranged for a low price exclusive record label, Diva. Columbia Records produced this label which consisted of titles also issued on Columbia's general sale Harmony label and it existed from 1925 through 1930. Grant continued to sell records after 1930, but they no longer had their own label.
Grant's stores were slower than the Kresge stores to adapt to the growth of the suburb and the change in shopping habits that this entailed. The attempt to correct this was belated; in the 1960s and early 1970s, the company built many larger stores (later known as Grant City), but unlike Kresge's Kmart they lacked uniform size and layout, so that a shopper in one did not immediately feel "at home" in another. The chain's demise in 1975 was in part due to a failure to adapt to changing times but was probably accelerated by management's refusal until it was too late to eliminate the shareholder dividend. After the company began to lose money, funds were borrowed to pay the quarterly dividend until this became impossible. A final tactic to stay in business involved requiring Grant's clerks and cashiers to offer a Grant's credit card application to customers to boost sales in the stores.
Grant's store-branded electronics and other goods were named Bradford after Bradford County, Pennsylvania, where William Thomas Grant was born. The in-store restaurants were named Bradford House, and their mascot was a pilgrim named Bucky Bradford.
The largest W.T. Grant store was located in Vails Gate, New York. It became a Caldor and several other stores, and is now a Kmart. During the 1950s and 1960s there was a Grant's store located on 87th street and 3rd avenue in Manhattan, New York.
W. T. Grant's bankruptcy in 1976 was the then-second biggest in US history. The most apparent cause of the bankruptcy was the company's decision to extend store credit to all customers, with no attempt made to assess the customer's ability to repay. Each of the company's stores had credit managers who authorized the opening of store credit accounts, which resulted in many customers having credit accounts with more than one of the company's stores. In addition, there existed no centralized control or record-keeping of store credit accounts which resulted in noncollectable accounts. The credit was recovered in 1976 by Irwin Jacobs who with the backing of Carl Pohlad purchased their consumer accounts receivable account of $276.3 million for $44 million and 5% of first-year sales.
This initiative to extend credit to all customers was made in 1969, during a prosperous period in US history, when Grant was expanding into new areas of the US and hopeful of pulling customers from rival Kresge and other department-store companies. The low number of defaulters on small loans at this time meant that the credit arrangements looked like a good idea, but the complete absence of any credit check, and the low minimum repayment terms offered by Grant were extreme, even for the times. When the economic expansion slowed in 1970/1971 the balance shifted and the credit arrangement became more of a liability than an asset. No decision was made to change or halt this before 1974 when the company's collapse was a certainty.
W. T. Grant
William Thomas Grant was born in Stevensville, Bradford County, Pennsylvania; his family moved to Massachusetts when he was approximately 5 years of age.
At age 7 Grant began his sales career by selling flower seeds. Years later, he wanted to sell people what they needed at prices they could afford, with only a modest profit. In 1906, at 30 years of age he opened his first "W. T. Grant Co. 25 Cent Store" in Lynn, Massachusetts.
His initial capital was $1,000 he had saved from his work as a salesman. This modest profit, coupled with a fast turnover of inventory, caused Grant's business to grow to almost $100 million in annual sales by 1936, the same year that he started the William T. Grant Foundation. The stores were generally of the dime store format located in downtowns.
W. T. Grant's Signature
Among his avocations were philosophy, painting, and local philanthropy. In his later years, Grant was Chairman of the Board of the W. T. Grant Company and President of the Grant Foundation, and later Chairman of the Board. He received honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from Bates College in Maine and the University of Miami.
He retired from both the W. T. Grant Company and the Grant Foundation at age 90, yet still served in an honorary capacity until his death in 1972 at age 96. By that time his nationwide empire of W. T. Grant Co. (Grants) and Grant City stores had grown to almost 1,200, although the company failed in 1975 and was soon liquidated.
There is no evidence the company ever became commercially viable, though it is believed it might have planned to be a ship's chandlery.
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