American Tin Plate Company ( Became U.S. Steel ) 1890's

Beautifully engraved RARE SPECIMEN certificate from the American Tin Plate Company printed in the 1890s. This historic document was printed by the Western Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of an eagle with a shield. This is the first time we have seen this certificate for sale and it may be unique.




Certificate Vignette

In 1901, the American Tin Plate Company became part of United States Steel Corporation.

Tin plates are thin sheets of iron or steel coated with tin (in former times, iron sheets were used, since the revolution in steel making, always steel). Their production involves two distinct operations: the making of the steel sheets or so-called black plates, and their tinning. The former of these operations, the more important, divides itself again into two; the making of the crude steel in the form of suitable bars, and the rolling of these bars into thin sheets suitable for tinning. Of the cost of a given quantity of tin plates, something like two-thirds is the cost of the black plates or steel sheets; and of the cost of the black plates again, 60 per cent is the cost of the steel bars (known in the trade as sheet bars).*47 The making of the fundamental raw material, crude steel in the form of bars,—has been subject to the general influences described in the preceding survey of the steel industry at large. The production of the black plates by rolling from the bars, and the coating of these sheets with tin, involve operations of a more special kind.

The unexpected growth of the tin plate industry after 1890 was due chiefly to the cheapening of the fundamental raw material,—sheet bars. The decade after 1890, it will be remembered, was the period in which the American steel industry reached the stage of independence.

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About Specimen Certificates

Specimen Certificates are actual certificates that have never been issued. They were usually kept by the printers in their permanent archives as their only example of a particular certificate. Sometimes you will see a hand stamp on the certificate that says "Do not remove from file".

Specimens were also used to show prospective clients different types of certificate designs that were available. Specimen certificates are usually much scarcer than issued certificates. In fact, many times they are the only way to get a certificate for a particular company because the issued certificates were redeemed and destroyed. In a few instances, Specimen certificates were made for a company but were never used because a different design was chosen by the company.

These certificates are normally stamped "Specimen" or they have small holes spelling the word specimen. Most of the time they don't have a serial number, or they have a serial number of 00000. This is an exciting sector of the hobby that has grown in popularity over the past several years.