Plough, Inc. - Delaware

Beautifully engraved certificate from Plough, Inc. This historic document was printed by the American Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of an allegorical woman with another woman and man. This item has the printed signatures of the Company’s President, and Secretary.




Certificate Vignette



Schering-Plough Corporation was a United States-based pharmaceutical company. It was founded in 1851 by Ernst Christian Friedrich Schering as Schering AG in Germany. In 1971, the Schering Corporation merged with Plough (founded by Memphis area entrepreneur Abe Plough in 1908 ) to form Schering-Plough. On November 4, 2009 Merck & Co. was merged with Schering-Plough with the new company taking the name of Merck & Co.

Schering was founded in 1851 by Ernst Christian Friedrich Schering as Schering AG in Germany.

Following the entry of the United States into World War II in 1941, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered Schering AG's U.S. assets be seized. These became the Schering Corporation. The company was placed under a government administratorship until 1952, when it was released and its assets sold to the private sector.

Plough, Incorporated was founded by the Memphis, Tennessee area entrepreneur Abe Plough in 1908 . He borrowed $125 from his father to start the business at age sixteen. As a one man business, he mixed "Plough's Antiseptic Healing Oil," a "sure cure for any ill of man or beast," and sold it off a horse-drawn buggy.[1] He grew the company through sound management and innovative strategies, with marketing genius.

Plough's acquisitions included St Joseph's Aspirin for children, Maybelline cosmetics, and Coppertone skin care products. Plough also had a broadcasting division, operating radio stations in Atlanta, Georgia; Baltimore, Maryland; Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; and Memphis, Tennessee.

In 1971, the Schering Corporation merged with Plough, Inc. At the time of the merger, Abe Plough became Chairman of the combined company

In 2000, Schering Plough bought a new campus in Summit, New Jersey from Novartis. The company planned to make this location its second-largest corporate complex in the world after completion of its current $20 million renovation.

Schering-Plough was named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers in 2004 and 2005 by Working Mothers magazine.[citation needed]

On March 9, 2009 it was announced that Schering-Plough and Merck were to merge. On November 4, 2009 Schering-Plough merged with Merck & Co. and through a reverse merger Merck became a subsidiary of Schering-Plough, which renamed itself Merck.

Schering-Plough manufactured several pharmaceutical drugs, the most well-known of which were the allergy drugs Claritin and Clarinex, an anti-cholesterol drug Vytorin, and a brain tumor drug Temodar. These are now available from Merck & Co.

Schering Plough also owned and operated the major foot care brand name Dr. Scholl's and the skin care line Coppertone. These also became a part of the new company.

As of June 2005, Schering-Plough had 1.4% market share in the U.S., placing it seventeenth in the top twenty pharmaceutical corporations by sales compiled by IMS Health.

Schering-Plough was a full member of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), a membership which is also maintained by the new Merck.

History from Wikipedia and OldCompany.com (old stock certificate research service).

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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.