Super Valu Stores, Inc. 1978

Beautifully engraved SPECIMEN certificate from the Super Valu Stores, Inc. This historic document was printed by the Security-Columbian Banknote Company in 1978 and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of an allegorical man. This item has the printed signatures of the Company’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer ( Jack J. Crocker ).










Certificate Vignette



Super Valu, the second-largest food wholesaler and distributor in the U.S., originated in the merger of two Minneapolis wholesale grocers in the late 19th century, B.S. Bull & Company and Newell and Harrison. The company undertook a number of acquisitions and mergers, changing its name to Super Valu Stores in 1951.

The Minneapolis-based company serviced over 3,000 primarily independently owned retail food stores in 32 states, along with its 105 corporately owned retail food stores and the 75 ShopKo discount mass merchandise stores.

Press Highlights from Super Valu Stores:

2000 Joined Worldwide Retail Exchange, premier retail-focused, business-to-business exchange.

Signed multi-year national supply agreement with Webvan Group, Inc., Foster City, CA

1999 Acquired Richfood Holdings, Inc., leading Mid-Atlantic food distributor and retailer, August 31, 1999, including Shoppers Food Warehouse, Metro and Farm Fresh retail food chains.

Divested of Hazelwood Farms Bakeries to focus on core businesses of food distribution and retailing. Entered into long-term supply agreement with Hazelwood and new owner Pillsbury Bakeries & Foodservice.

1998 SUPERVALU opened or completed acquisitions of 73 stores in 1998, including 29 stores owned by Randall Stores, Inc., Mitchell, SD-based food retailer.

Scott’s Foods stores purchased Keltsch Pharmacy of Northeast Indiana (11 freestanding pharmacies and three in-store pharmacies).

1997 SUPERVALU exited its 46 percent investment in ShopKo; realized net proceeds of $305 million.

1996 Save-A-Lot acquired 21 Sav-U Foods stores in CA; to become Save-A-Lot stores. Acquired eight Butsons stores and eight former Purity Supreme stores in New England.

1994 Acquired Sweet Life Foods, a Suffield, CT-based wholesaler.

Acquired Hyper Shoppes, Inc., Cincinnati, OH, then operator of five bigg’s supercenters and two bigg’s Foods stores.

1992 Acquired Wetterau Incorporated, St. Louis, MO food wholesaler and retailer

Introduced new corporate mark, changed name to SUPERVALU INC.



1991 ShopKo issued an IPO of 16.5 million shares of common stock; SUPERVALU retained a 46 percent minority interest.

Scott’s Foods stores acquired (Ft. Wayne, IN).

1955-1988 SUPERVALU acquired 12 regional food wholesalers, primarily in the Midwest, Southeast and Northwest U.S. from 1955 to 1988.

1980 Cub Foods (5 Twin Cities stores) acquired.

1971 ShopKo acquired.

1954 Super Valu Stores, Inc. official name change.

1942 Introduction of Super Valu name. Winston and Newell dissolved franchise with IGA, formed voluntary group of stores with an extensive program of services to retailers and stressed nationally advertised brand names.

1870 B.S. Bull, Newell & Harrison Co. Minneapolis wholesale grocery firms, forerunners to SUPERVALU.

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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.