Toys "R" Us, Inc. - 1996 dated Specimen Stock Certificate
Inv# SE3825 Specimen Stock
Specimen Stock printed by Security-Columbian United States Banknote Corporation. Incorporated in 1993.
Toys "R" Us is an American toy, clothing, and baby product retailer owned by Tru Kids (doing business as Tru Kids Brands) and various others. The company was founded in 1957; its first store was built in April 1948, with its headquarters located in Parsippany-Troy Hills, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. While originally considered a category killer, the rise of mass merchants and online retailers cost Toys "R" Us its share of the toy market. The company was further hampered by a significant debt load, the result of a leveraged buyout organized by private equity firms. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2017 and 2018, closing all of its stores in the US, UK, and Australia, with the last US stores closing in 2021. Operations in other international markets such as Asia and Africa were less affected, but chains in Canada, parts of Europe and Asia were eventually sold to third parties. In August 2021, WHP Global announced that Toys "R" Us would be opening over 400 stores within Macy's starting in 2022. The flagship store is located in New Jersey at the American Dream shopping and entertainment complex. A second flagship store was opened inside the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota in November 2023.
In April 1948, Charles P. Lazarus founded a baby-furniture retailer, Children's Bargain Town in Washington, D.C., during the post-war baby boom. It was acquired in 1966 by Interstate Department Stores, Inc. The focus of the store changed in June 1957, and the first Toys "R" Us, dedicated exclusively to toys rather than furniture, was opened by Lazarus in Rockville, Maryland. Lazarus also designed and stylized the Toys "R" Us logo, which featured a backwards "R" to give the impression that a child wrote it. The store chain grew successfully and built a brand which was recognized to many children born in the 1960s and 1970s, and shared in the success of the birth of popular culture successes of action figures (Star Wars, GI Joe), dolls (Cabbage Patch Kids, Rainbow Brite), video games (Nintendo's Super Mario series and other co-developed names, original SEGA Genesis stations and titles), and ultimately the co-branded FAO series, as the higher-end FAO Schwarz stores folded. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toys_%22R%22_Us
Stock and Bond Specimens are made and usually retained by a printer as a record of the contract with a client, generally with manuscript contract notes such as the quantity printed. Specimens are sometimes produced for use by the printing company's sales team as examples of the firm’s products. These are usually marked "Specimen" and have no serial numbers.
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