1908 Stock Certificate - Safe Deposit Company at 5545 N. Broadway in Chicago, Illinois For Sale

In xxxx William Paisley and sons James and Oliver opened both the Edgewater Bank and the North Shore Safe Deposit Company as legally separate entities located at xxxx N. Broadway in Chicago. In xxxx they moved the existing bank business to xxxx N. Broadway and chartered a new bank named North Shore Savings Bank to operate at the old xxxx N. Broadway facility.
By summer xxxx the Paisleys expanded again and opened the Summerdale Savings Bank at xxxx N. Clark Street and a new branch of the North Shore Savings Bank at the corner of Broadway and Grace Streets within walking distance from a brand new baseball park named Cubs Park (and later known as Wrigley Field) which just opened to start the xxxx season.
By September xxxx the Feds charged the Paisley family with recklessly maintaining their accounting records by maintaining worthless loans, stealing from their depositors and concealing their hopeless insolvency.
The Paisley family placated the Court by voluntarily surrendering control of their banking business, as the Feds were on the verge of stripping them of control anyway.
In those days, especially in Chicago, it was fairly common for corrupt owners to rape their own banks by making loans to cronies when they knew would never get repaid. In return, it was believed that the cronies took a cut for themselves and funneled the remainder of the loan money back to the corrupt owners? personal pockets at the expense of depositors in the era before the FDIC became an advocate to protect depositors.
Goes Printing Company produced this xxxx stock certificate for the North Shore Safe Deposit Company containing spectacular font, an embossed gleaming gold corporate seal in lower left corner and a gold under print stating SHARES $100 EACH. At bottom center there is also a gold vignette of the beak of a bald eagle.
A black and white vignette appears in the upper left corner and features a profile of a long-haired woman wearing a Robin Hood styled hat with a diamond set front center on the hat?s brim. James and Oliver Paisley sign the stock certificate at bottom as company secretary and company president respectively. The stock was issued to their father, William Paisley.
The genuine stock certificate is in like-new condition and measures 11 1/8 X 8 3/8 inches.
Interestingly, the stock certificate?s address of the safe deposit company in xxxx lists as xxxx Evanston Avenue, which is the street name just before the City of Chicago renamed the street as Broadway, which is well known to Chicagoans today.