1852 Bank Of Pennsylvania Stock Certificate. What Do People Think.

I have this in my collection as it was a family item and has been in my family since the date it was issued. That is +160 years ago.

I have seen only one of for sale ever and the seller, an expert in scripophily , was asking $500 for it. He indicated that it was exceeding rare. The stock certificate is very cool.

Any comments.

Wrong forum?

.
Surely we can give the lad more of a pointer than that ...

https://www.coincommunity.com/forum...FORUM_ID=165

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Many later stock certificates have revenue stamps, so I don't think this is necessarily in the wrong forum.

Caveat: I do not collect stock certificates, BUT the fact that this is certificate number 1979 indicates that a significant quantity of these did exist at one time. With those potential numbers, I would call the dealer's opinion of "exceedingly rare" as puffery to sell his example. It does have very attractive engraving. A quick check of Google images locates this example numbered over 2700:

I am always amazed how much good information one can get from this forum. The chat board indicates that this forum includes stock certificates and I have seen many posts from members posting on certificates that do not have tax stamps attached to them. Thus I listed this early stock certificate with that standard in mind.

The certificate indicates total bank capital of $1,875,000 which each share carrying par value of $100. That means that there were 18,750 shares issued (that means shares, not certificates). If the average certificate carried 5 shares, then the number of certificates printed were 3,750. If the average number of shares per certificate were 10, then the number of certificates would be 1,876. My certificate number is 1,979 and the other astute member posted a certificate with a number of 2,763. So we know that at least 2,763 certificates were issued.

I would opine on the matter that probably at least 75% of the certificates are lost or have been destroyed. As many as 90% to 95% of the certificates could well be lost. This is of course a guess. If there are only 25% of the certificates remaining, then that would be 500 or so certificates in existence. In terms of scripophily, this has to be an exceedingly low number. Stock certificates, particularly the more current ones, are in massive abundance as they were regularly cancelled and reissued. In the end, I would not be surprised if one could perform an accurate inventory of all remaining certificates, the number of existing certificates could well be less that 100.

All that said, I have searched the web extensively for any of these stock certificate and found only one for sale. My search turned up no prior sales of this certificate. Also, the signatures on the certificate is of importance. The signature of the President of the Bank on my 1852 certificate is different than the signature on the other member's certificate which is dated 1855. Certificates with different signatures are in effect "different certificates" and thus a different "variety". Therefore, the established certificate count for my 1852 "variety" certificate is less than than that for the whole number of Bank of Pennsylvania certificates.

I stand by my claim that the certificate is a rare item and is certainly such by philatelic and scripophily standards. How many examples of an item must there be to be considered rare? If there are 500 such items, I would consider this rare. If the number is more like 100, then it is exceedingly rare. I would put forward a challenge to forum members - find me examples of this item for sale or having been sold anywhere. I suspect that maybe there have been a small handful at best to be located.

I would also comment that the other "Bank of Pennsylvania" certificate that the member has posted in response to me was the very certificate that I referred to in my original post. The seller of this"other" certificate is asking $500 and comments about its rarity. I see no other examples anywhere of this certificate.

I would also add that I have seen similar types (but a different bank) of stock certificates auctioned on Heritage Auctions for several hundred dollars.

I'm a little late to post, but that's a beautiful stock, SewallH! Personally, I collect stocks and bonds primarily for the banknote engravings, so revenues and revenue stamped paper is of little consequence to me. (Heresy!) Your stock was produced by Hufty & Danforth, so according to the information I have, it would have been printed between 1847 and 1850. I think it probably does qualify as rare, though I'm not sure it would bring $500 in an auction.

You might be interested in perusing a similar sub-forum on our sister site, Coin Community Family: https://www.coincommunity.com/forum...FORUM_ID=165

Very Nice!
And great history having it in your family all of those years.