Print

Cape Colony: Thorne, Stuttaford & Co., Cape Town

Cape Colony: Thorne, Stuttaford & Co., Cape TownCape Colony: Thorne, Stuttaford & Co., Cape Town
Form: Circular with attached loop
By: Wolfgang Lauer of L. Chr. Lauer, Nuremberg Germany
Date: c 1890
Ref:  Laidlaw: 1158;
Variations:
SizeMetalMassValue
30.4 mmAluminium3.0 gm$20

Edge: Plain.

Obverse: Within a beaded border round the rim, view of a department store with five stories on corner with two street frontages. Open signage at top of building: "THORNE (in an arc) / STUTTAFORD & CO". Signed on right end of exergue line: "LAUER". Blank exergue.

Reverse: Within a beaded border round the rim, across: "FOR / CLOTHING, / FURNITURE, / DRAPERY, / MANTLES, / MILLINERY / (ornament)". Legend above: "THORNE, STUTTAFORD & Co" and below between stops: "CAPE TOWN".

Notes: Samson Rickard Stuttaford founded a company under his name in Cape Town during 1858. He was soon joined by his brother William Foot Stuttaford and William Thorne. The business prospered and in 1870 the Colonial Bank building at the corner of corner of Adderley and Hout Streets was purchased for the sum of £10,000 and the company changed its name to Thorne, Stuttaford &Co. The building was altered and the premises expanded over the next decades. The huge cast iron signage at the top of the building was installed in 1890.

Stuttafords continued to expand with a growing chain of department stores across the country. Fortunes declined with the advent of suburban shopping malls and the africanisation of city centres. The company went out of business in 2017.