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GN Store Nord (Denmark)

GN Store Nord A/S

image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 1 Dec 2025

Brief History
Flag of GN Store Nord
Flag of The Great Northern Telegraph Company
House Flags of The Great Northern Telegraph Company Shipping Department

See also:

Brief History

The company was founded as The Great Northern Telegraph Company (Danish: Det Store Nordiske Telegraf-Selskab A/S) in June 1869. It was set up as a merger of three recently established telegraph companies initiated by Carl Frederik Tietgen. The aim of the company was to establish a worldwide operating telegraph company. The starting point was a concession agreement made with the Russian Tzar in 1869. The agreement gave the Company exclusive rights and obligations to establish and run a telegraph line in Russia.
In the following years the telegraph line expanded massively in Europe and in Asia. First Oslo, London and Paris were covered. Later operations took place alongside the coast of China between Hong Kong and Shanghai, also Japan, where the first telegraph station opened in Nagasaki in 1897. In addition to the telegraph line, telegraph stations and offices opened at several locations. Until 1906 telegraph lines to Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland and the USA were established.
WW1 and the Russian October Revolution demanded an increase of telegraphy. The company succeeded in prolonging its concession agreement in 1921, signed by Lenin himself. In the 1920s and 1930s the company had the reputation as being one of the leading international telecommunication companies in the world.
1945 the company had only two lines left; the England-Faroes-Iceland line and the Sweden-Finland line. Although broken lines were repaired and re-established after the war, the company had to face that an era was over. A new strategy was to focus on a broader segment by investing across sectors. This strategy was initiated in 1939 with the investment in a battery factory. Electrical goods followed and in 1947 the company produced telephones, measuring equipment and hearing aids.
In 1985 the name was changed to GN Store Nord (GN = Great Nordic). Later the headquarters were moved from Kongens nytorv in København to Ballerup. The company focussed on its two core businesses; hearing aids and headsets. In 2021 the company had 7228 employees.
Source: Danish WIKIPEDIA
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 2 Dec 2025

Flag of GN Store Nord

The company has a logo flag displaying on a white cloth orange initials "GN".
Source: Danish WIKIPEDIA
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 2 Dec 2025

Flag of The Great Northern Telegraph Company

56:107, image by Željko Heimer, 2 June 2004

It is the state ensign with the golden inscription "S.N.T.S." in canton two golden thunderbolts in saltire.
Source: Flaggenbuch (1939)
Željko Heimer, 2 June 2004

House Flags of The Great Northern Telegraph Company Shipping Department

image by Jarig Bakker, 20 Jan 2005
image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 29 May 2025

The company was founded in 1869 and based in København and also known as The Great Northern Telegraph [or Telephone] Co. Ltd. The flag was red with a centred white Maltese cross (see left image above) and with broader cross, quasi a red version of DFDS (see right image above).

Sources: Brown´s Flags and Funnels (Wedge 1926) and US Navy 1961, p.3-15/row 2/column 1
Jarig Bakker, 20 Jan 2005 and Klaus-Michael Schneider, 29 May 2025

Store Nordiske Telegrafselskab was quite a successful company in its day. In periods, it took care of parts of the Danish foreign policy towards Russia. The company has changed quite a lot since. The core of the company is now GN Great Northern , but the cable and telegraph activities are in GN Great Northern Telegraph Company.
Source: company webpage
Ole Andersen, 20 June 2001

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