Pullman Company (RARE Specimen) - Illinois

Beautifully engraved specimen certificate from the Pullman Company. This historic document was printed around 1900 by the Republic Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of the company's founder, George Pullman. This is the first time we have seen or had this specimen type for sale, and we only have one.


Certificate Vignette



George Pullman never forgot his first overnight train ride. It was the early 1850s, and he was making the trip from Boston to Westfield, Massachusetts. Like everyone else he spent the night lying fully clothed on a rough mattress. Like everyone else he didn't sleep much. This was no way to travel, he thought, and began to consider the cash to be made in creating comfort.

Pullman had ideas and ambition, and a few years later -- now in Chicago -- he had money, a stake of $20,000 made from raising buildings in the city's flood-prone neighborhoods. His greatest feat, in 1858, involved elevating the stylish Tremont Hotel. After workmen installed heavy beams in the basement of the four-story building, Pullman supervised the simultaneous turning of 5,000 jackscrews by 1,200 men. Slowly the Tremont rose to higher ground.

A man who could move hotels wasn't likely to be cowed by the challenge of building a better train car. Besides, almost anything would be an improvement. Rail travel was a miserable experience, a back-battering ride on stiff benches in cars thick with dust in the summer and smoke from the wood stove in the winter. Even when some rail lines began offering overnight accommodations, passengers were given little more than cots or mattresses and little privacy. Pullman saw a market there: the growing number of businessmen traveling from city to city.

He began to rebuild two coaches, dividing the oversized cars with curtains into 10 sleeper sections. With the cleverness of the cabinetmaker he had once been, Pullman hid his beds in upper berths that could be opened at night, and similarly installed hinged chairs that could swing back up to the ceiling. He built a linen closet and toilets at both ends. He mounted everything on four-wheeled trucks with heavy iron wheels and springs, softening the ride. But perhaps most important, Pullman paid enormous attention to detail, lining his sleepers with rich cherry wood and covering the seats with plush upholstery that seemed even softer in the glow of oil lamps. By the end of 1858 his sleepers -- which he considered experimental -- were carrying somewhat confused riders. Most couldn't fathom actually trying to sleep on a train. When they realized this was indeed possible, they still had to be convinced that they could remove their shoes. No one would steal them, the conductors promised.

George Pullman's sleeper was a thing of beauty. But he was just getting started. Soon he would create a luxury car the likes of which had never been seen.

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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.