Mercantile Library Company of Philadelphia stock certificate 1903 

Great collectible old stock certificate with amazing vignette of the library building with nice underprint in orange of $40 share price.  Issued and not cancelled. Dated Feb 13, 1903 (handwritten over 187_ preprinted date).  Measures approximately 10.75 x 8.5 inches.

The Mercantile Library Company was a library in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, that operated from 1821 to 1989. Like other "Mercantile Libraries" of the era, it was originally a subscription library focused on serving merchants, but gradually shifted focus over time to serve more as a public library, and ultimately became a freely-accessible branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia. The library moved to three different locations during its 168 years of existence, but only the third library building, opened in 1952, still stands; this building was added to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places in 1990.

The Mercantile Library was founded in 1821. In 1845, after years of having impermanent locations, it housed itself at the Mercantile Library building on Fifth Street. Per its name, the library was primarily intended to serve merchants with documents on trade, business, and commerce, though library catalogs from later in the century indicate the library soon held books on other subjects.

In 1869, the library's growing membership and book collection prompted a move to another location on Tenth Street. In 1877, the Mercantile Library building caught fire when a blaze from the neighboring Fox's American Theatre spread to its roof, and some of the library's collection was damaged from the fire as well as from water used in firefighting efforts by the Philadelphia Fire Department.

By the 1880s, the Mercantile Library had long since become considerably popular outside its original membership base of merchants, and the librarians chose to lean into this and curate expanded novel collections to match public demand, though they were especially selective to enforce public morality at the time. At an indeterminate point after 1894, the Mercantile Library was absorbed into the Free Library of Philadelphia and became a public library branch.

In 1952, the Mercantile Library moved to a newer building at 1021–1023 Chestnut Street, the site of the former Chestnut Street Opera House. In 1989, after 168 years of operation, the Mercantile Library was forced to close after asbestos was discovered in the building. The Free Library of Philadelphia absorbed the collections of the Mercantile Library after its closure.