Estudios Tenochtitlán’s stock certificate: the surviving artifact of a failed venture.
In this occasion, we feature an uncommon artifact: a stamped stock certificate of ‘Estudios Cinematográficos Tenochtitlán, S. A.’, film studios that should have been established in Mexico City; however, they never saw the light of day.
The company was founded by Luis Dickson and R. Ramírez, manager and treasurer, respectively. The shares were released on March 30, 1933. Nicolás Tortolero y Vallejo, well known attorney based in Mexico City, was in charge of incorporating ‘Estudios Cinematográficos Tenochtitlán’.
The corporate capital was set at two million Mexican pesos (about $600,000 USD), and 200,000 shares were released.
Though both the stock certificate and the matter of a failed corporation project can be of little historical significance in themselves, they are a good example of a trend that beleaguered the nascent Mexican film industry in the early thirties: the surfacing of numerous schemes for establishing film studios in the capital, as well as in other cities. Some of those projects were genuine enough; unfortunately, most of them were abounding in hope as much as wanting in funds; conversely, others were meant to rip off investors.
Newspapers and film magazines often reported affairs of the sort; anyway, we have not been able to find any reference about ‘Estudios Cinematográficos Tenochtitlán’. Luis Dickson and R. Ramírez are not mentioned either.
