Shanghai Telephone Company - 1933

Beautifully engraved SPECIMEN certificate from the Shanghai Telephone Company dated 1933. This historic document was printed by the American Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of the company logo. This item is over 70 years old. This is the first time we have had this certificate for sale.








Certificate Vignette

The following is from an article in the China Journal News in 1934:

Shanghai Telephone Company Expands: Telephones in use in the International Settlement and the French Concession of Shanghai totalled 50,588 on March 1, 1934, according to a report recently issued by the Shanghai Telephone Company. The total showed an increase of 15,188 telephones in forty-two months. In August, 1930, the figure stood at 34,700. In the same period, in addition to the increased number of instruments in use, six new buildings were opened, automatic equipment installed for 41,400 lines, and all sub-scribers in the International Settlement and the French Concession converted to the use of the dial. The entire work was done in about five-sixths of the time allowed by the franchise, while the capital required amounted to nearly $27,000,000.

Although the normal annual growth of installed telephones is from five to eight per cent. in most cities, Shanghai registered year]y increase of slightly more than ten per cent. during the period under review, and the demand continues. Last year it was necessary to place 800 new lines in the exchanges, and many thousands of feet of cable, both overhead and underground, of sizes containing from fourteen to 1,200 pairs of wires.

Tal Shan To Have Telephone Service : Modern telephone service linking the summit of Tai Slian, sacred mountain near Tai-an, Shantung, with the cities of the plains may soon be possible. General Han Fu-chu, Governor of Shantung, has issued orders for the work to be done immediately.

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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.