?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
EDISON TAKES STOCK IN HIS OWN PHONOGRAPH EDISON, THOMAS. Certificate for Edison's 80 shares of stock in the Edison Phonograph Works. Printed certificate completed in manuscript, 5 3/4 x 10 1/4 inches, with detached stub, 5 3/4 x 4 inches; embossed corporate seal, Edison's signature on recto as president (crossed out) and on verso as seller (clean), marked "Cancelled" in red ink on recto. New Jersey, 12 July 1888
This company was founded in October 1887 to market one of Edison's greatest inventions, the phonograph. The following July, he issued this certificate to himself for 80 shares. Over the next several years, after many false starts and mergers, he began marketing phonograph players and cylinders to the public on a large scale, and recorded music assumed the central role in human culture which it retains today.
