ABCorp

American Banknote Corporation

Trade name	ABCorp
Formerly	American Bank Note Company
Industry	Manufacturing, Finance, Printing
Founded	1795
Headquarters	Boston, Massachusetts
Key people	William J. Brown, CEO
Website	abcorp.com

Former headquarters, the American Bank Note Company Building at 70 Broad Street, Manhattan

Printing plant in the South Bronx

American Banknote Corporation (formerly American Bank Note Company), trading as ABCorp, is an American corporation providing contract manufacturing and related services to the authentication, payment and secure access business sectors. Its history dates back to 1795 as a secure engraver and printer, and assisting the newly formed First Bank of the United States to design and produce more counterfeit resistant currency. The company has facilities in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

History

Origins

In 1795, Robert Scot, the first official engraver of the U.S. Mint, founded Murray, Draper, Fairman & Company (spelled Fairham in some sources), which was named for Scot's three partners. Its products included stock and bond certificates, paper currency for the nation's thousands of state-chartered banks, postage stamps (from 1879 to 1894), and a wide variety of other engraved and printed items.

In the nineteenth century

On April 29, 1858, following the Panic of 1857, seven prominent security printers merged to form the American Bank Note Company. The new company made New York City its headquarters. Less than two years later, the remaining handful of independent bank note printers merged to form the National Bank Note Company.

To be close to the stock exchanges, brokerage firms, and banks in lower Manhattan, the American Bank Note Company established its headquarters in the Merchants Exchange Building at 55 Wall Street in Manhattan. The company moved its office and plant to 142 Broadway (at the corner of Liberty Street) in 1867, to another new facility at 78–86 Trinity Place in 1882, and again to 70 Broad Street in 1908.

The first federally issued paper currency was circulated by the US Treasury Department following the outbreak of the American Civil War. Congress passed authorizing legislation for $60 million worth of these "Demand Notes" on July 17 and August 5, 1861. Under contract with the government, the novel paper money, called "greenbacks" by the public, was produced by the American Bank Note Co. and the National Bank Note Co. A total of 7.25 million notes were produced in denominations of $5, $10, and $20. American and National were also producing paper money for the Confederacy at the same time.

100 pesos Banco Italiano del Uruguay (1887)

American Bank Note Company, Share certificate (1944)

Following the initial production of U.S. currency by the government's Bureau of Engraving and Printing in 1862, ABN sought a new business abroad. The company eventually supplied security paper and bank notes to 115 foreign countries.

National Bank Note Company (1861-73) merged into ABN in 1873.

In 1877 Congress mandated that the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing be the sole producer of all United States currency. The security printing industry, finding a good deal of its work had evaporated, accordingly underwent a second major consolidation in 1879 and ABN absorbed Continental Bank Note companies in that year. At the time of the merger, Continental held the contract to produce U. S. Postage stamps, and this production continued under ABN.

In 1887, ABN won the second four-year contract to engrave and print postal notes for the U.S. Post Office. (New York's Homer Lee Bank Note Company produced these notes during the first contract period.) ABN assigned Thomas F. Morris, its Chief Designer, the task of re-designing this early money order. The paper for this contract (as for all Postal Notes and a massive number of official U.S. high security documents) was produced by Crane and Co. of Dalton, Massachusetts.

In 1891, ABN began producing a new form of negotiable instrument for a longtime customer: the American Express "Traveler's Cheque" demand notes. In its first year, American Express sold $9,120 worth the product.

In 1894, ABN completed the final contract for the private printing of U.S. Postage stamps. Perhaps the most popular were the Columbian Issue, one cent to $5 issues commemorating the voyages of Christopher Columbus and the 1892–93 Columbian Exposition in Chicago (for which they also printed the admission tickets). On July 1, 1894, American delivered its entire stamp-producing operation to the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, D.C., where U.S. stamps were still printed up into the 1990s.

In the twentieth century

The American Bank Note Co. Ottawa, Ontario Canada 1897–1911

In 1933, the company printed the second series of Bank Melli Iran banknotes.

In 1943, the U.S. Post Office launched a series of thirteen stamps honoring the countries that had been overrun by the Axis during World War II. Each stamp featured a full-color reproduction of the flag of each of the occupied nations. While the Bureau of Engraving and Printing had previously issued bi-colored stamps, it did not have equipment for printing the necessary multi-colored flag images; and so, contracted with ABN to produce the stamps. Issued between June 1943 and November 1944, the Overrun Countries series reproduced the flags of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Greece, Yugoslavia, Albania, Austria, Denmark, and Korea,

Today

ABCorp is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with North American manufacturing facilities located in Boston, Massachusetts and Toronto, Ontario, and distribution services located in Columbia, Tennessee. The company maintains international facilities in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia and Auckland, New Zealand.

Landmark buildings

The American Bank Note Company Building and American Bank Note Company Printing Plant were both built in 1908 and are both designated New York City Landmarks. The former is also listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The buildings were sold in 1988 and 1985, respectively.

Gallery

• 
  Benjamin Franklin Issue of 1861 from the first series of US Postage Stamps produced by the National Bank Note Co (later merged into the American Bank Note Co.
• 
  The $5 Columbian stamp (1893), from the last US postage stamp issue produced by the American Banknote Corporation until 1944.
• 
  Beer revenue stamp proof single, 1871
• 
  Canadian 2 cent stamp, 1898
• 
  1897 "Lady of the Light Bulbs" revenue stamp of Canada
• 
  Queen Victoria, Nova Scotia 8½ cent stamp, 1860
• 
  Pedro Álvares Cabral - steel engraving by American Bank Note Company
• 
  Colombia 1916 specimen revenue stamp
• 
  Greek bank note of 1912 for the National Bank of Greece
• 
  US Stamp from the "Overrun Countries series," showing the pre-1905 flag of Korea (similar to the modern flag of South Korea).
• 
  Dutch Guilder printed for the Dutch government-in-exile, 1943
• 
  1000 Turkish lira printed by ABCorp in 1946

See also

• Canadian Bank Note Company - Canadian unit from 1897 to 1923
• New York Bank Note Company
• Postage stamp
• Postage stamps and postal history of the United States
• Banknotes of Turkey

References and sources

Sources

• Antecedents of the American Bank Note Company of 1858 by Foster Wild Rice
• The Story of the American Bank Note Company by William H. Griffiths
• America's Money America's Story by Richard Doty
• The Comprehensive Catalog of U.S. Paper Money by Gene Hessler

External links

• Official website