Specimen Certificates

Couldn't help myself on this one. While I'm primary a postal historian I do have an interest in scripophily, particularly railroads and Ohio companies. Stocks don't have to be old to be attractive and engraved...this one has a CUSIP so must be from 1967 or later.

So many parallels between philately and scripophily, and it's surprising how few collectors there seem to be for stocks and bonds.

This may help to date your stock certificate from March 1990 to March 1993.

Note that it is signed by "Philip G. Barach, Chairman". According to Forbes Magazine:

I'm a big fan of specimen certificates and collected them avidly when they were less expensive. There are many stocks you can only find as specimens, and conversely specimen versions of some stocks are far rarer than issued examples. Here are a few from my collection.

As far as there being less interest in scripophily in the Philatelic community, I think that's to be expected. The size and appearance of stocks and bonds has more in common with paper money, so typically you'll find more interest in the numismatic world.

The scanned image for the West End Street Railway Company certificate harks back to an interesting beginning in history for public transportation in Boston ... a forerunner to today's "T" (MBTA or Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority):

Add this to all the other interesting things I've seen on this forum. Those stock certs are lovely and I could certainly see adding one here or there to my nascent ephemera collection at some point.

I picked up another nice specimen recently, a Hartford (CT) High School bond. The vignettes on this one are quite attractive, considering it was a mundane municipal bond.



The other two are not specimens, per se, but I thought it would be useful to illustrate different types of certificates. This one from the Mutual Banking Co. of Richmond is a printer's proof. These were typically printed on card stock and punch cancelled at the bottom. They were generally used just for in-house review by the banknote company.



Lastly, here is what's known as a blank. These were printed by a large banknote firm (American Bank Note, in this case) in advance with partial or no text, then either sold to a local printer or used for small jobs. I've seen a completed blank similar to this for the Delaware Railroad.

Thought I'd add something to this topic for fun. I picked up this specimen bond recently, for a reasonable price. The vignette of the worker tapping a rubber tree was too cool to pass up.

I scanned a bunch more specimens for a different forum and thought I'd add a few more here...

I was quite happy to pick this one up last week. It's from my home town in Michigan!

Hi, GregAlex, very nice!

Stampmaster

cool

Time to post a few more!

This first one is actually from an anti-counerfeiting booklet.



You can see the difference between old-style design (with a border) and the "modern" designs.

I think they all are awesome. I am thinking of looking into getting some.

Thought I'd add a foreign specimen to this thread. This one was printed by the British banknote firm Bradbury, Wilkinson & Co, at the time a subsidiary of American Bank Note Co. Even the back of this one is impressive.