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Exceedingly rare partly-printed DS, signed "Thos. A. Edison," one page, 11.5 x 7.75, January 4, 1894. Elaborately engraved stock certificate marked “911,” issued to A. W. Kilbourne for 20 shares in the North American Phonograph Company, signed at the conclusion by Thomas Edison as president, and countersigned by the company’s treasurer. The ornate orange-and-black certificate is richly engraved with elaborate geometric and floral borders and two finely detailed vignettes of early phonograph machines flanking the company’s large central title. The reverse bears a stock-transfer form signed by the stockholder. In very good to fine condition, with edgewear, including small partial separations to the intersecting folds.
Founded on July 14, 1888, by Jesse H. Lippincott, the North American Phonograph Company acquired an exclusive license to the American Graphophone Company's patents along with a controlling interest in the Edison Phonograph Company, positioning it to commercially develop the phonograph in the United States and Canada. Lippincott's plan to market the machine primarily as an office dictation device struggled, and after he fell ill in late 1890, Edison, by then the company's principal creditor, assumed increasing financial and administrative control. Edison became president in 1892, but amid the company's continuing financial difficulties and litigation over phonograph rights, he formally resigned the presidency on January 9, 1894.
Issued just five days before his resignation, this certificate dates to the closing days of Edison’s presidency and the beginning of the North American Phonograph Company’s final troubled year. The Edison Phonograph Works demanded payment of the company’s outstanding debts in June, and on August 21st, North American entered receivership, with Edison as its principal creditor. Bearing his signature as president at a critical juncture in the company’s decline, the certificate survives from the final months before its collapse.
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