American Museum of Natural History Planetarium Authority (RARE Bond) - New York 1934

Beautifully engraved RARE $1000 Specimen Bond Certificate from the American Museum of Natural History Planetarium Authority printed in 1934. This historic document was printed by the Hamilton Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of the Hayden Planetarium. This item is over 82 years old.


Certificate Vignette



The Hayden Planetarium is a public planetarium, part of the Rose Center for Earth and Space of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, currently directed by astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Since February 2000, the planetarium has been one of the two main attractions within the Rose Center. The top half of the Hayden Sphere houses the Star Theater, which uses high-resolution fulldome video to project “space shows” based in scientific visualization of current astrophysical data, in addition to a customized Zeiss Star Projector system replicating an accurate night sky as seen from Earth. The bottom half of the Sphere is home to the Big Bang Theater, which depicts the birth of the universe in a four-minute program. As visitors leave the Planetarium theater, they exit to the Size Scales of the Universe exhibit which shows the vast array of sizes in the universe; the walkway itself is a timeline of the Universe from the Big Bang to the present. This exhibit leads to the Big Bang Theater and exits to the Cosmic Pathway, which shows the history of the universe. From the bottom of the Cosmic Pathway, visitors can stop by the Hall of Planet Earth to explore geology, weather, plate tectonics and more, or go down to the Hall of the Universe to explore the realms of planets, stars, galaxies and more.

The Hayden Planetarium offers a number of courses and public presentations including the Frontiers of Astrophysics and Distinguished Authors lecture series.

When the Hayden Planetarium reopened after renovation in 2000 with a model of only eight planets, excluding what was then called planet Pluto, it resulted in a headline-making controversy.

History

1935

The Hayden Planetarium, designed by architects Trowbridge & Livingston, opens, after its construction is funded by a $650,000 loan from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and a $150,000 donation from banker Charles Hayden of Hayden, Stone & Co. Its mission was to give the public a more lively and sincere appreciation of the magnitude of the universe... and for the wonderful things which are daily occurring in the universe.

1960

A Zeiss Mark IV projector is installed.

1973

A Zeiss Mark VI projector and new seats are installed.

1979

The planetarium appears as a backdrop for scenes in the film Manhattan. Woody Allen and Diane Keaton play characters who walk around within the planetarium after escaping from a sudden downburst of rain.

1997

The original Hayden Planetarium is closed and demolished in January.

1999

A new, customized Zeiss Mark IX projector is installed in August. It is accompanied by a digital dome projection system that provides a 3-D visualization of the universe based on images generated in real time by a Silicon Graphics supercomputer.

2000

On February 19, the Rose Center for Earth and Space, designed by James Polshek and containing the new Hayden Planetarium, opens to the public.

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.