Ritter Dental Manufacturing stock certificate c1926 (New York) 

Dental chair maker. Plain specimen (sample) stock certificate from an interesting company history. Unissued and cancelled. Stamped SPECIMEN at the bottom with punch holes in the signature blocks. Circa1926 from company records for common stock issuance. Approximately 11 x 8 inches. 

Ritter Dental was founded in 1887 by Frank Ritter, a German carpenter, who invented one of the world's first dental treatment chairs.

1887: Frank Ritter established The Ritter Dental Manufacturing Co. in Rochester NY after seeing an opportunity in an innovative dental chair raising/lowering mechanism invented by Dewell Stuck.

1891: Frank Ritter manufactured his first successful dental chairs.

1893: Ritter Dental Manufacturing first issued closely held stock with no common voting shares,

1912: Ritter introduced the "control panel" for dental instruments, a major advancement in dental technology at the time.

1917: The company unveiled the first integrated treatment system, combining the chair, control panel, drill, cuspidor, saliva ejector, tray table, and air/water syringes into a single unit.

1926: The company first issued common shares to be traded publicly in US exchanges but later returned to private ownership.

1957: The Ritter Company, Inc., the holding company, acquired Liebel-Flarsheim Co. which manufactured x-ray specialties as components for other x-ray machine

1958: Wilmot Castle Company was acquired by Ritter Company, Inc. Wilmot Castle sold lights and sterilizers for the dental and medical profession.

1964: The Ritter Company acquired the Kerr Manufacturing Company of Detroit, Michigan. Kerr was founded in 1891, and has served the dental profession since that time by supplying a large line of dental sundries and instruments.

1965: The M. F. Patterson Dental Supply Company and the Ritter Company, Inc. merged to form the Ritter Corp. Patterson was the largest independent dental supply store chain in the nation.

Late 1965, the Ritter-Pfaudler Corporation was formed by the merger of Ritter Corporation and Pfaudler Permutit, Inc. Pfaudler's activities were not related to the dental products field. In 1968, Ritter-Pfaudler changed its name to the Sybron Corporation.

Modern Era: Ritter Dental, now operating as a privately held entity with global reach, continues to design and manufacture dental equipment and implant systems. Its production facilities remain in Germany.

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