New York Stock Brokers: Austin M. Greer

AUSTIN M. GREER,

SEP

19

1898

NEW YORK. 

 detail of Greer's double-ring oval cancel

Austin Greer doesn't appear in King's Views of the New York Stock Exchange 1897-1898, the resource guide we've been using to help identify the brokers whose cancels appear on various 1898 revenues.  Happily his cancel is readily identifiable, an attractive double-ring oval, oddly punctuated with a comma after his name and period after New York.  The 20-cents in tax stamps used for the transaction properly pays the 2-cent per hundred dollar rate for the resale of 10 shares of stock whose original value was $100 per share.   

Perhaps Greer, at this time, simply was dealing under the auspices of  Charles M. Schott, Jr. who became a member of the NYSE in 1869 and whose name appears on the Greer memo.  Schott himself though apparently was still independently active as John previously blogged about a CHAS. M. SCHOTT, JR. & CO. cancel on a 40-cent battleship issue.  Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about NYSE transactions can explain the purpose of the "Account of C. M. SCHOTT, Jr." endorsement on the Greer sales memo or what relationship might have existed between Greer and Schott.  

The buyer, Boody, McLellan & Co.,  to whom Greer sold these 10 shares of Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad stock, was a recognized NYSE member firm, adding further credence to Greer's acceptance "on the street" even if he was not then an NYSE member.        

Greer seems to have been in the brokerage business at least since the late 1880s, as a 1903 New York Times article refers to a fifteen year employee as embezzling funds from the firm.  Small wonder, as Greer reportedly often was absent from the firm's office for weeks at a time, leaving his employee to run the operation. The article makes no mention of Mr. Schott, so whatever relationship Greer had with him in 1898 may have been dissolved by 1903.