Certificate of Founder's shares issued in Lyon in 1893.

Founded in 1893, the company had its head office in Lyon (36 rue de la Gare) but its industrial headquarters in Pontarlier (Doubs).

Its purpose was to manufacture and sell a brand of absinthe called "Absinthe Terminus". The slogan for this so-called extra-superior absinthe of perfect purity was "I drink to your successes, my dear, and to those of the only beneficial absinthe Terminus".

The company is dissolved in 1898.

Absinthe was extracted by alcoholic distillation from the middle of the 18th century. Marguerite Henriod, renowned for her herbal remedies, creates a first elixir to cure various ailments. A lace merchant, Daniel Henri Dubied-Duval bought his recipe from him and founded the first distillery with his son and son-in-law Henri-Louis Pernod. In 1908, the latter founded his own distillery in Couvet then in Pontarlier "Pernod Fils".

Franche-Comté welcomed at that time around fifty distilleries. This aniseed drink is consumed as an aperitif in the Jura and in the Doubs, in Paris, and in the south where it provides a refreshing effect.

In 1910 absinthe was banned from sale in Switzerland and then in France in 1915 because it was discovered that it contained a hallucinogenic neurotoxin. It will only be decriminalized in 2005 in Switzerland and in 2011 in France.

Issue of 4000 shares and 3000 certificates of 5 founder shares.

Rare document designed by Lucien Métivet (1863-1932).

In vignette: coat of arms and view of the town of Pontarlier. 

VF/EF condition: small hole in the center