Jewel Companies, Inc.

Product Details

Nicely engraved antique specimen stock certificate from Jewel Companies, Inc. dating back to the 1980's. This document, which features the printed signatures of the company President and Treasurer, was printed by the Security-Columbian/United States Bank Note Company and measures approximately 12" (w) by 8" (h).

The vignette features a semi-nude female allegory with doves a bird bath and more.

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You will receive the exact certificate pictured.

Historical Context

In 1899, Frank Vernon Skiff founded Jewel in Chicago as a door-to-door coffee delivery service. In 1902, Skiff partnered with his brother-in-law Frank P. Ross, renaming the venture the Jewel Tea Company. By 1903, they had six routes, then 12 routes in 1904 with expansion into Michigan City, Kankakee, and Kewanee. There were 850 routes by 1915. In the late 1900s, it ran a "coffee train" that composed of 40 cars carrying coffee beans that were exported from South America.

During WWI, the company faced soaring costs for materials and production. Compounding this, the US government commandeered a key Jewel production facility. As a result, by 1919 the company was experiencing severe financial setbacks. Within a few years, it returned to profitability through the leadership of new company officials: retired Commanders John M. Hancock and Maurice H. Karker, who had both gained extensive logistics experience as US Navy supply officers during the war.

In 1929, the company built a new office, warehouse, and coffee roasting facility in suburban Barrington, Illinois, creating hundreds of local jobs despite the Great Depression. The Barrington location served as the headquarters and main warehouse facility for both the home delivery and food store divisions until the completion of the new warehouse and office complex at Melrose Park in 1953.

The company's expansion continued throughout the mid-20th century. In 1932, Jewel acquired the Chicago unit of the Canadian firm Loblaw Groceterias, Inc., then a chain of 77 self-service stores, as well as four Chicago grocery stores operated by the Middle West Stores Company, and began operating them under the name Jewel Food Stores. In 1934, Jewel Food Stores merged with Jewel Tea Company. In 1937, Jewel Tea Company purchased an eight story building in Chicago's Central Manufacturing District, which served as Jewel Food Stores' headquarters until 1954.

The name of the parent company remained Jewel Tea Company until 1967 when the stockholders voted to change the name to Jewel Companies, Inc. to better reflect the expansion of the company into different markets. In 1967, the company went public and its stock was traded on the Midwest Stock Exchange.

In 1957, Jewel acquired the Champaign-based Eisner Food Stores, located in downstate Illinois and later in west central Indiana (Lafayette, West Lafayette, and Bloomington). This acquisition was significant since it was the first time Jewel maintained the new acquisition as a separate division within the Jewel organization with the acquired stores keeping their original names, setting the pattern for future acquisitions.

In 1961, Jewel acquired two growing non-food related retail chains, Chicago-based Osco Drug stores, and Brighton, Massachusetts-based Turn Style discount department stores, to complement their food store division when building one-stop shopping destinations, such as the new Family Centers and Jewel-Osco (Eisner-Osco, Star-Osco, Buttrey-Osco) food-drug combinations. The acquisition of both Osco and Turn Style allowed Jewel to expand into non-food related retailing that would complement their existing food retailing business and also to expand the geographic range of its main food distribution business since the non-food companies had a different geographical footprint.

Jewel expanded into the home improvement retail market by acquiring Republic Lumber in 1972.

During the 1960s, Jewel expanded by acquiring several chains.

Jewel expanded their food store holdings by acquiring Cambridge-based Star Market in 1964 and the Great Falls, Montana-based Buttrey Food Stores in 1966 to add to their existing Jewel and Eisner food store chains. The acquisition of Star Market also gave Jewel control of Brigham's Ice Cream, which had been a part of Star since 1961. Jewel later sold off Brigham's in 1982. In 1965, Jewel expanded into the convenience store business by opening Kwik Shoppe, a chain that was quickly renamed White Hen Pantry within a few months. Before 1970 Jewel stores were typically located on arterial city streets. Between 1970 and 1990, Jewel moved or expanded most of its stores to be freestanding buildings with ample parking. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Jewel built and operated many Jewel-Osco side-by-side stores, but most construction after 1983 consolidated Jewel and Osco stores together as one large store under one roof. Today, the two stores present to the customer as one unit; for instance, a customer can check out any items at Jewel or Osco registers, find Jewel and Osco merchandise commingled throughout the store, and can call one telephone number to reach their Jewel-Osco. However, each operating unit keeps its own separate marketing identity to the public as a "food store" or a "drug store." The first Jewel-Osco food-drug combination stores were built in 1962. Jewel opened five stores in Michigan in the 1970s, but closed all five in 1996. In 1971, Jewel expanded their brand into Wisconsin by acquiring eight failing stores from Kroger and rebranded the stores Jewel. After a decade of operations, Jewel closed all their stores in Wisconsin in 1980. Those locations were sold to Sentry Foods. Jewel did not return to Wisconsin until 1995.

Until 2010, Jewel and Osco stores under the same roof have had separate operations, managers, ordering and receiving procedures, budgets, and employees. A 2010 cost-saving measure brought both Jewel and Osco oversight under one store director for each site. In 1978, Jewel Companies, Inc. attempted to acquire Skaggs Companies, Inc. through an exchange in stock in which Jewel would have been the surviving company and still based in Melrose Park instead of Salt Lake City. A few months later, Skaggs turned down the merger offer. At that time, Skaggs had 229 stores. After six years, Jewel suffered many losses due to failing marketing concepts and general mismanagement while Skaggs became larger and strong enough to perform a hostile take over of Jewel under its new name, American Stores. American Stores made an offer to acquire the Jewel Companies in 1984. The Jewel Companies, Inc. chairman Weston Christopherson was opposed to a merger and Sam Skaggs was forced to engineer a hostile takeover. On June 1, 1984, American Stores tendered an offer worth $1.1 billion for 67% of Jewel's outstanding shares at $70 per share. For two weeks, Jewel's management refused all comment on the offer, maintaining its silence even at a stormy shareholder's meeting before which Jewel shareholder groups controlling 20% of the company's stock were in favor of negotiating with American Stores. On June 14, Sam Skaggs and Jewel president Richard Cline reached an agreement after an all-night bargaining session. American Stores raised its bid for Jewel's preferred stock, increasing the total bid to $1.15 billion in cash and securities. In return, Jewel dropped plans for a defensive acquisition of Household International Inc. and accepted American Stores' offer. American Stores soon sold Buttrey Food Stores (in 1990), Star Market (in 1994), and White Hen Pantry (in 1985), to pay off debt and for other reasons.