Reynolds Metals Company 1930 - R.S. Reynolds as President

Beautifully engraved RARE SPECIMEN certificate from the Reynolds Metals Company. This historic document was printed by the American Banknote Company around 1930 and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of and allegorical man and women. This item has the printed signatures of the Company’s President ( R.S. Reynolds ) and its Secretary.








Certificate Vignette

Reynolds Metals Company was founded in 1919 by Richard S. Reynolds who was an entrepreneur and pioneer. Today, Reynolds is the third largest aluminium company in the world with more than 100 manufacturing plants world-wide and business interests spanning 25 countries. Reynolds employs around 29,000 people and its largest market is packaging and containers, which accounts for 45% of the company's revenue. Non aluminium products such as plastics and precious metals account for 25% of sales, although aluminium beverage cans represent the single largest use of aluminium in the industry.

Richard S. Reynolds, creator of "Reynolds Wrap" was the nephew of tobacco king R. J. Reynolds. In fact, the younger Reynolds worked for his uncle during the summers of his youth, until in 1919, he started his own business, the U.S. Foil Co., supplying tin-lead wrappers to cigarette and candy companies.

In the 1920s, the price of aluminum dropped, and Reynolds switched from tin to this new lightweight, non-corrosive metal. The material's advantages were numerous, including that it could be rolled much thinner than existing metal packaging and was less expensive because of the greater yield of foil per pound of metal. In addition, aluminum foil was more brilliant and more appealing to the eye. Moreover, it had protective qualities which made it valuable as a packaging material.

In 1924, Reynolds and his Louisville, Kentucky-based company bought the enterprise that made Eskimo Pies, which were wrapped in foil. Four years later, Reynolds purchased Robertshaw Thermostat, Fulton Sylphon, and part of Beechnut Foil, adding the companies to U.S. Foil to form Reynolds Metals. In 1926, the company began using aluminum foil as a packaging material for the first time. By 1930, Reynolds sales had reached nearly $13 million. Continuing to expand and grow, the company moved its headquarters to New York City. The company created the first high-speed, gravure-printed foil, aluminum bottle labels, heat-sealed foil bags for foods and foil-laminated building insulation paper. In 1938, the company's executive offices were moved again, this time to Richmond, Virginia.

Reynolds could see in the late 1930s that it was possible that the United States would enter World War II. He knew that meant demand for aluminum would increase, as it could be employed in many of the supplies troops would need overseas. At that time, Reynolds Metals began mining bauxite (aluminum ore) in Arkansas in 1940 and opened its first aluminum plant near Sheffield, Alabama, the following year. In 1947, the company came up with its most famous creation, Reynolds Wrap Aluminum Foil, which sells extraordinarily well in supermarkets all over the world today and transformed food storage everywhere.

Meanwhile, Reynolds Metals pioneered the development of aluminum siding in 1945, and R.S. Reynolds began predicting a growing demand for additional aluminum during peacetime. He knew it wouldn't take long before new aluminum-producing facilities would need to be built to meet demand. Reynolds Metals Company leased, and later bought, six government plants that were up for disposal.

Reynolds continued to grow, opening mining operations both in the US and around the world. The company also began to introduce new consumer and industrial products -- in 1982, for example it introduced Reynolds Plastic Wrap. On May 3, 2000 the company merged with Alcoa to become the largest aluminum company in the United States.

Information from MIT.

About Specimens

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 we 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 grown in popularity and realized nice appreciation in value over the past several years.