September 24 in business history: a corner broken at noon, a ¥1 million company, and a first week of 6,000 copies
Three September 24 decisions — a gold corner broken by a $4 million Treasury sale in 1869, Honda's incorporation with ¥1 million and 34 employees in 1948, and Nevermind's 6,000-copy first week in 1991 — and what each one quietly committed its maker to.
Three September 24s, spread across 122 years, each turning on a decision that looked small on the day it was made: an order to sell Treasury gold in 1869, the registration of a business already trading for two years in 1948, and a record release in 1991 that its label expected to sell modestly. Each one committed the people who made it to far more than the day's paperwork showed.
The gold that had to be sold in secret
At 10 a.m. on September 24, 1869, the New York Gold Exchange opened with gold quoted at $143. The price ran up to $150 and then to a high of $162, with Jim Fisk still buying 1. Fisk and his partner Jay Gould held between $50 million and $60 million of gold between them, about three times the supply available in New York 2.
The corner rested on a promise about the government, and Gould had spent the summer building it. Through Grant's brother-in-law, Abel Corbin, he argued at dinners and on steamships that high gold prices helped western farmers selling crops abroad, and he placed $10,000 with the assistant treasurer in New York, Daniel Butterfield, for word of any Treasury sales 12. On September 23, with the price still climbing, Grant and Treasury Secretary George Boutwell decided to break the ring by selling government gold if it kept rising, and Grant authorized the release of $4 million onto the market 12.
Gould learned that day that the White House had turned against him 2. On the morning of the 24th he sold quietly while his agents kept buying in public with Fisk in the lead, and he kept the warning from Fisk, who went on telling the room that Grant supported a high price 12. When gold passed $155, the Treasury released $4 million of gold and bought $4 million of bonds; shortly after noon the room learned the government was selling, and the price collapsed to $135 12. Gould finished the day with nearly $12 million of profit, and Corbin lost money on the loan he had taken to buy gold 12.
Dozens of brokerage firms went bankrupt, and the value of gold and stocks fell by $100 million 1. Stock prices fell 20 percent between September 24 and October 1, trading stayed thin into the new year, and farmers paid for it: wheat on the Chicago market fell from $1.40 to $0.77 a bushel and corn from $0.95 to $0.68 2. A House committee chaired by James Garfield cleared Grant of wrongdoing and excoriated Gould, and both men avoided prosecution; federal regulation of commodities trading began decades later 12.
Decision mirror: On March 22, 2021, ViacomCBS announced a stock offering, and Bill Hwang's Archegos Capital Management, holding concentrated positions financed by its prime brokers, added nearly $1 billion of stock the next day to hold up prices it had already distorted. On March 24 it made one final attempt to reverse the market, failed, and faced margin calls it could not meet 3. Credit Suisse reported about $5.5 billion of losses following Archegos's default 4, and Hwang was sentenced to 18 years in prison and ordered to pay more than $9 billion in restitution 3. Gould's escape route was a day and a half of selling into his own partner's buying; Hwang's version of the same day was to buy more.
Thirty-four people and one million yen
Honda Motor Co., Ltd. was incorporated in Itaya-machi in Hamamatsu on September 24, 1948, with starting capital of ¥1 million 5. The company being registered was the Honda Technical Research Institute, which Soichiro Honda had opened on September 1, 1946 5. Colleagues who were there recalled the day fifty years later as an ordinary working day: the signboard outside the plant stayed as it was, and the day ended with a remark on the way out 6.
Japan that week was three years past the war and still under Allied occupation. The newspapers were taking a holiday, so the founding went unrecorded in print, and the standard rice ration was two and a half go, under half a litre, for one person's three meals 6. Honda's business was a wartime radio generator engine rebuilt by hand and mounted on a bicycle, about 500 of them bought and reworked, and the A-Type engine of 1947 was the first product to carry his name 5.
The production decision inside the incorporation turned out to be the one that lasted. Honda chose die casting for the A-Type engine, against the volumes of the time, because he was aiming at mass production; a single die tool cost more than ¥500,000, around ¥10 million in today's money, and his engineers cut the dies themselves with the tools they had 5. The Dream D-Type, Honda's first complete motorcycle, followed in August 1949. Takeo Fujisawa, who met Honda that same month, shut his own company and joined as managing director 5. The E-Type of October 1951 reached 500 units a month within six months and 2,000 within a year, and annual sales passed 32,000 three years later 5.
Decision mirror: On March 12, 2026, Honda cancelled three electric models it had already developed for North American production — the Honda 0 SUV, the Honda 0 Saloon and the Acura RSX — saying that starting production into sharply lower EV demand would probably mean further losses 7. The company booked expected operating expenses of ¥820 billion to ¥1.12 trillion, an impairment of ¥110 billion to ¥150 billion on its equity-method investments in China, and total losses across that year and later of up to ¥2.5 trillion. It forecast an operating loss of ¥270 billion to ¥570 billion for the year to March 2026, against operating profit of ¥1,213 billion the year before, and senior executives gave back 20 to 30 percent of three months' pay 7. Reuters reported the year as Honda's first annual loss in nearly 70 years as a listed company, driven by a write-down of more than $9 billion on electric vehicles 8.
Six thousand copies
DGC Records released Nevermind, Nirvana's second album, on September 24, 1991. The band had recorded it in May and June at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys for a budget of $65,000, on a $287,000 advance from signing with Geffen 9.
It sold 6,000 copies in its first week and entered the Billboard 200 at No. 144 10. In the week ending December 29, 1991 it sold 374,000 copies, its best week, and on the chart dated January 11, 1992 it took the top spot from Michael Jackson's Dangerous and held it for two weeks 10. The album has spent 335 weeks on the Billboard 200 and has sold 9.4 million copies in the United States, 5.6 million of them on CD and 3.3 million on cassette 10. Worldwide sales passed 30 million, and the RIAA certified it 13 times platinum in 2024 9.
The release committed its label to a market it had no product line built around. In 1991 a record earned money copy by copy, and every copy had to be pressed, shipped and reordered; the 374,000-copy Christmas week was the payoff on that cycle 10. The audience that turned up over the following two years was larger than the number of units anyone had planned to print.
Decision mirror: Global recorded-music revenue reached $31.7 billion in 2025, up 6.4 percent and the eleventh consecutive year of growth. Streaming passed $22 billion and accounted for 69.6 percent of the total, paid subscription accounts numbered 837 million, and subscription streaming alone took 52.4 percent of revenue 11. Physical formats returned to growth at 8.0 percent, with vinyl up 13.7 percent for a 19th consecutive year 11.
The commitment test
- Can the position be sold without being seen to sell it? Fisk and Gould held $50 million to $60 million of gold on September 22, 1869, about three times New York's available supply; Gould spent the next day and a half selling while his agents bought, and came out with nearly $12 million 12. Archegos added nearly $1 billion on March 23, 2021 and opened on March 24 with no way to meet its margin calls 3.
- What does the production decision commit you to before the volume arrives? Honda incorporated with ¥1 million and 34 employees and tooled for die casting at more than ¥500,000 a die 56. In 2026 it cancelled three developed electric models and booked up to ¥2.5 trillion of expected losses rather than start production 7.
- Which sales model does the product actually ship into? Nevermind's first week was 6,000 copies, its best week 374,000 10. The recorded-music industry took $31.7 billion in 2025, with 69.6 percent of it from streaming and 52.4 percent from paid subscriptions 11.
References
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- 2Wikipedia: Black Friday (1869)
en.wikipedia.org
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- 6Honda: Do You Remember September 24, 1948?
global.honda
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- 9Wikipedia: Nevermind
en.wikipedia.org
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- 11IFPI: Global Music Report 2026
ifpi.org
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