Burlingame Telegraphing Typewriter Company

Product Details

Historical Context

The Burlingame Telegraphing Typewriter Company was formed in Washington in 1908, allegedly to manufacture a new wireless teletype machine. The company was never more than a money grab, and never produced a single piece of equipment.

From Munsey's Magazine, Volume 47, 1912:

"Back in 1906 or 1907, a concern known as the United States Wireless Printing Telegraph Company of California was formed to exploit a device known as the Telautoprint. It came to nothing, and the stock was exchanged for shares in the Burlingame Telegraphing Typewriter Company. This was a fifteen-million dollar concern, of which Elmer Burlingame was president. The company entered into a stock-selling contract with the Burlingame Underwriters. It is asserted that more than twelve hundred thousand of the fifteen hundred thousand shares, par value ten dollars, were marketed. All that the Underwriters accounted for was some sixty-two thousand shares, for which the Burlingame Company got $82,323. This is the only money the treasury ever received.

When this orange was squeezed dry, the Consolidated Printing Telegraph Company was formed, with a capital also of fifteen million dollars. Announcement was made that it had acquired the Burlingame, Swenson, Rae, Barclay, and other patents for the purpose of transmitting English characters over a telegraph-wire. The company proposed an exchange of stock, share for share, for Burlingame stock, on the payment of a fee, and announced that it would perfect a machine. Some men of good reputation joined the enterprise, and it did produce a machine, which worked experimentally. There are patents lor a large number of other devices.

The scandals of the stock-jobbing in the notorious Burlingame Company, however, prevented any real progress with the Consolidated Company, and in June, 1911, that concern "went bump." In March, the property was ordered sold in foreclosure. One interest bought in the Burlingame stock, and asserts that thereby it has acquired the patents. Another interest, claiming to act for an association of shareholders, asserts that these patents were assigned, and are now in its possession. This group has formed a new concern, the American Printing Telegraph Security Company, with an authorized capital of one hundred thousand dollars, and is offering stock for sale at ten dollars a share.

Shareholders in the Consolidated Printing Telegraph Company have no equity or interest in the American Printing Telegraph Security Company. The Consolidated Company was hopelessly bankrupt, and it is dead and gone. Whether the shareholders in the Burlingame Company have any interest, I cannot say. Their holdings might serve as the basis of a lawsuit to determine the validity of the alleged assignment of the patents.

Any one thinking of subscribing to stock in the new company should regard it as a new investment, for in all probability every dollar put into the Burlingame Telegraphing Typewriter Company or the Consolidated Printing Telegraph Company is a total loss."

Related Collections