Maildienst der Holland-Amerika Lijn N.V., Bewijs van 6% Cumulatief Preferente Aandeel, 1000 Gulden, 193., PROOF

Holland America Line was founded in 1873, as the Nederlandsche-Amerikaansche Stoomvaart Maatschappij (Dutch-American Steamship Company), in short Holland-Amerika Lijn, a shipping and passenger line. It was headquartered in Rotterdam, in the building which is now the Hotel New York.[5] It provided service from its European base to the Americas over the North Atlantic. The company was formed as a result of the reorganization of an earlier company, Plate, Reuchlin & Co. The company's first ship was the original Rotterdam (1872), which sailed its 15-day maiden voyage from the Netherlands to New York City on October 15, 1872. Other services were started to other new world ports, including Hoboken, Baltimore and South America. Cargo service to New York started in 1809. Though transportation and shipping were the primary sources of revenue, in 1895, HAL offered its first vacation cruise. Its second vacation cruise, from New York to Palestine, was first offered in 1910. One notable ship was the elegant 36,000-gross register ton SS Nieuw Amsterdam of 1937, it and RMS Queen Mary being the only two liners built in the 1930s to make a profit. At the start of the Second World War, HAL had 25 ships; nine remained at war's end. At the beginning of the war, the Westernland acquired from the Red Star Line in 1939, berthed at Falmouth, England, became the seat of the Dutch government. The Nieuw Amsterdam sailed half a million miles transporting 400,000 military personnel. After the war, the shipping line was instrumental in transporting a massive wave of immigrants from the Netherlands to Canada and elsewhere. Another notable ship during the post-war period was the SS Rotterdam of 1959, one of the first North Atlantic ships equipped for two-class transatlantic crossing and one-class luxury cruising. By the late 1960s, the golden era of transatlantic passenger ships had been ended by the introduction of transatlantic jet air travel. HAL ended transatlantic service during the early 1970s, leaving the North Atlantic passenger trade for Cunard's Queen Elizabeth 2. In 1973, it sold its cargo shipping division, which continued to operate freight liner services with freighters, a Lighter aboard ship ('LASH' ship, mv Bilderdijk) and then container ships under the trade name of Incotrans, with headquarters in Rotterdam, with some of its North American services operated in partnership with the French shipping line Compagnie Générale Maritime. It ceased operating as a Dutch line in 1989, when it was purchased by Carnival for 1.2 billion guilders (€530 million). The proceeds were put into an investment company (HAL Investments), the majority of which is owned by the van der Vorm family.