Colonial Stores Inc. - circa 1970's Unissued Stock Certificate

Unissued Stock with signatures printed by American Bank Note Company. Colonial Stores was a chain grocery stores once found throughout much of the South. Most were transformed to Big Star Markets in the 1970s and later most became Harris Teeter or A&P.

The chain evolved from Norfolk, Virginia's D. P. Pender Grocery Stores, the first of which opened in 1900. In its early years the company used horse drawn wagons to deliver goods to customers. In 1919 Pender opened a second grocery store in Norfolk, later expanding to more locations in Central and Eastern Virginia. Pender retired on January 1, 1926, making the David Pender Grocery Company a publicly owned corporation which later became a subsidiary of National Food Products Corporation. By Pender's retirement the company owned 244 stores and employed more than 1,500 people. In 1930 the company made an average of $35,000 in sales per store. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_Stores