Product Details
Beautifully engraved antique stock certificate from the Fisk Rubber Company dating back to the 1920's. This document, which is signed by the company Vice President and Assistant Treasurer, was printed by the American Bank Note Company and measures approximately 12 1/4" (w) by 8 1/2" (h).
The vignette on this piece features a man tapping a rubber tree. He is flanked by a pair of allegorical female figures.
Images
You will receive the exact certificate pictured.
Historical Context
The Fisk Rubber Company was incorporated in Massachusetts in 1912.
In 1898, Noyes W. Fisk purchased a company in Springfield, Massachusetts. The firm he bought had produced bicycle tires and other rubber items. He continued the business under his own name, and branched out with-his first automobile tire in 1899. By 1916 the Fisk plant at Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts was making some 5,000 tires a day. The tire business, along with numerous other enterprises, fell upon hard times during the depression. Nevertheless, Fisk introduced its new Safti-Flight tire in 1930, and it proved to be an impressive success.
In 1940 Fisk was acquired by the U.S. Rubber Company, now Uniroyal, Inc.
In 1917 the Fisk Tire Company challenged Norman Rockwell to do a series of advertising paintings for Fisk Tires. At the time, the slogan "Time To Re-Tire" was very popular and caught the fancy of Mr. Rockwell's sense of humor. The series that he did for the Fisk Company was among the most popular. The Fisk Bicycle Tire advertisements appeared in American Boy from 1917 to 1919. The company started a bicycle club which was extremely popular among young boys, and Mr. Rockwell's ad of kids on bikes increased its popularity. The advertisements also appeared in the Christian Herald in 1917, the Literary Digest in 1917, St. Nicholas Magazine in 1918, and in Youths Companion.
Mr. Rockwell was called upon again for another series of advertisements which ran in 1924 and appeared in Country Life, Liberty, Theatre and The Saturday Evening Post.
Today many of Mr. Rockwell's famed Fisk Tire ads still hang in the Uniroyal plant in Chicopee.
