The New York Cable Railway Company
$1000 Face Value 51 Year 5% Gold Coupon Bond
Issued 1884 due 1935 # 2992
Reference Cox NEW-524-B-50 [iu] Page 352
We've been involved as collectors of antique stocks and bonds for over 25 years. Among a number of themes we've focused on right from the beginning are certificates from financial institutions, especially national banks; PA oils; and, pre-1900 industrials. Along the way, however, we've accumulated a considerable collection of certificates from other sectors of the hobby such as historic railroad pieces. We've been downsizing our collection because, frankly, age is upon us. It's time to, hopefully, pass along some of this material to other scripophily buffs.
Please see Condition Description above.
After sorting through the history behind the formation of this company it is unclear as to whether or not it really became an operating company - and here's why.
In 1883, then NYC mayor, Franklin Edison appointed three commissioners to the Rapid Transit Commission and in their application for appointment to the commission called attention to the superior advantages of the system of surface cable roads to existing horse car and steam elevated roads. They also stated that it was their opinion that the commission had authority under the rapid transit act of 1875, then still in force, to lay out cable surface routes as well as steam elevated routes. The point was apparently doubtful, but the Commission, after securing legal advice, determined that it indeed had such power and accordingly located twenty-nine routes, covering some seventy miles of the streets of the city. The road was to be constructed as an elevated road for only seventeen of its seventy miles. The Commission organized The New York Cable Railway Company to construct and operate the road - [ED. - AND THEN NEW YORK [CITY AS WELL AS STATE] POLITICS KICKED IN. The general term of the Supreme Court refused to grant its consent on account of errors and irregularities connected with the adoption of the routes - [ED. - Really? Errors and irregularities in NYC politics? Who would have believed it!] Further, the Legislature of 1884 definitively determined the disputed question of jurisdiction by enacting that surface roads could not be laid out under the provisions of the rapid transit act of 1875.
From this point on much more legal wrangling ensued and from what little information is available it is unclear as to whether The New York Cable Railway Company ever was a going concern. It is interesting to note that one of the three original commissioners of 1883 as mentioned above was one Abraham L. Earle. He signs this bond as Secretary of the Company [ED. - could this not be a case of conflict of interest, but once again, it was New York politics!]. Also since two coupons were clipped who paid the interest if the company wasn't operational? Better yet, since this is a GOLD BOND wouldn't it have been guaranteed by the United States? Could the bonds legally have been issued without any tracks having been laid or without any proof that the company was indeed an operating company? This one has some nice flavor to it!
One more little side story to this bond. It was signed as President by Wallace C. Andrews. Mr. Andrews was a very wealthy gentleman with a mansion at 2 East 67th Street in New York City. On a night in April of 1899 the mansion burned to the ground killing him, his entire family and his live-in servants. Mr. Andrews was President of the U.S. STEAM HEATING COMPANY at the time. The cause of the fire was determined to be a GAS EXPLOSION. How's that for a piece of irony! [Source: Google].
Please see my other signed railroad stock certificates and bonds that are currently listed in two minute intervals.
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