SIMON LAKE SIGNED STOCK CERTIFICATE THE LAKE TORPEDO BOAT COMPANY OCT. 20,1915

Description

The history of this particular stock certificate is very interesting. About 30 years ago, our client was hired by Simon Lake's grandson Jeff to convert his home in Florida into a larger structure to be used as a museum to showcase the history and artifacts of Simon Lake. Upon completion of the work our client was told by Lake's  grandson Jeff hat he had no money and so he paid our client with signed checks and signed stock certificates from Simon Lake.Obviously this was not satisfactory for our client but he reluctantly accepted the checks and stock certificates.Our client has secured our services to help him liquidate the items he received.
If anyone has interest in purchasing the complete number of items we have please contact us.
This particular stock certificate was made out to Gwynne Bros. on October 20th, 1915. It was canceled on Nov. 1, 1915. The reverse of the stock certiticate has 2 revenue stamps affixed to it.
Inspired by Jules Verne's,
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea
,
Simon Lake (1866-1945) designed a submarine and submitted plans to the U.S. Navy in 1892. In 1894 he built his first experimental submarine,
Argonaut Junior
,
which was successfully demonstrated at Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. Its success led to the formation of the Lake Submarine Company of New Jersey, which built the
Argonaut 1
in 1898.
It was the first submarine to operate successfully in the open sea. The
Argonaut 1
and
Argonaut 2
was followed by the
Protector
, a surprisingly modern torpedo boat design that was adopted by the U.S. Navy during WWI.
Lake, who supplied over 100 submarines for the war effort, also helped to design a practical periscope and invented submarine apparatus for recovering sunken vessels and their cargoes. The versatile Lake founded many companies to implement his engineering visions. Industrial Submarine Corporation (1930) was one of these.
During WWII, he served as a consultant for the United States Navy on the salvaging of boats and the future of submarines.