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1936 Stock Certificate- Art Deco Radios and Phonographs in Chicago, Illinois For Sale

Price: $35
Type: Art & Antiques, For Sale - Private.

Authentic xxxx stock certificate of Majestic Radio & Television Corporation (hereafter MRTC) has a pleasing orange border with corporate seal at bottom-center. The left and right edges contain signature blocks for registrar and transfer agent respectively. Both the Company Treasurer and its President machine-sign the certificate near the bottom edge. Company name spreads across a banner near the middle of the document. Quayle & Son (Albany NY) produced the document.
The black-and-white vignette features an effeminate-looking man (possibly a woman, but would that be too provocative in xxxx?) seated with a woman on an ornately carved bench, somewhat like a love seat. The man wears a toga-tunic with one breast exposed. One of his hands clutches the woman's hand, as the other hand rests on a stylishly-designed three-foot tall globe. The necklaced woman wears a floor-length gown and clutches a rose in her free hand as her elbow rests on a thick book sitting on the armrest of the wooden bench.
MRTC incorporated in xxxx as successor company to legendary company Grigby-Grunow Co. (hereafter GGC), which once boasted the second largest company payroll in Chicago when it employed 13,000 people just before the xxxx stock market crash. Known for its cabinet-style Art Deco radios and phonographs (which are both valued collector's items today) made under the Majestic brand name, GGC operated a giant manufacturing plant at xxxx W. Armitage Ave. and another 34 acres at xxxx W. Dickens. To diversify, GGC began to make refrigerators, which surprisingly had just become American household staples in xxxx. GGC's eventual demise occurred because they had trouble competing with General Electric on refrigerators, they got socked with a major patent-infringement lawsuit filed by RCA (parent of NBC) in xxxx related to their radio speakers, and the Great Depression created favor towards smaller box radios rather than the large cabinet Art Deco radios for which GGC became famous.
Nevertheless, the gruff part-owner William Grunow became enormously wealthy through his ownership stake in GGC and built a palatial English Tudor style mansion that contained orange-marbled bathrooms, gold faucets, built-in swimming pool and a bowling alley in Chicago's River Forest suburb at 915 Franklin Ave. Infamous Chicago mobster Tony Accardo later owned the mansion from xxxx to xxxx. Accardo stocked the mansion with lavish furniture and installed a black onyx bathtub that served as his unofficial command post. That bath tub plus all the time that he spent in the tub earned Accordo the nickname "Big Tuna". Under pressure from mob chieftain Paul "The Waiter" Ricca to stop commanding so much media attention, Accardo sold the home in xxxx and "downsized" to an 18-room mansion at xxxx N. Ashland Ave., also in River Forest.
The stock certificate is in Excellent condition and measures 11 7/8 X 7 3/4 inches. MRTC dissolved in xxxx. Incidentally, U.S. radio broadcasting began in late xxxx and gained such rapid acceptance that within about six years most American households owned a radio. Thomas Edison announced the invention of his phonograph in xxxx.
I also have one MRTC stock certificate dated xxxx with olive green (not orange) border.

State: Illinois  City: Chicago  Category: Art & Antiques
Art & Antiques in Illinois for sale

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