How To Find Out If A Stock Certificate Is Valid

Getting Started

What exercise you do if you lot have a stock certificate? The first footstep to decide the value of the stock is to run into whether or not the visitor yet exists.

old stock certificates

Does the company still exist?

Your local library may have print and online sources that volition help yous find out, in what form, and if its stock still has value.

You can do a quick bank check on complimentary stock market quote services, such equally:

Large Charts
Over the Counter Bulletin Board (OTCBB)
OTC Markets

Oftentimes companies are bought out by or merged with other companies, and their names change. If this happens, a stock certificate may be worth something as a security.

What if the company no longer exists?

If this happens, chances are that the certificate has no value as a security, simply there is a hazard that the certificate is worth something equally a collectible.

Company Histories

These sources report corporate financial events, obsolete securities, or company histories:

Capital Changes Reporter
Directory of Obsolete Securities
Fisher Manuals
MERGENT/Moody'south Manuals
Smythe Manuals
Standard and Poor's Manual of Railroads

It's a good idea to check business, city, and phone directories and periodical indexes. Consult both current and previous indexes which cover the fourth dimension period when the company was active.

If you observe that a company has merged into or been acquired by a company that currently exists, contact the successor visitor'due south investor relations or shareholder services department near redeeming the stock.

Corporate Records

What if the to a higher place sources don't help? Certain records are kept past the land nether whose laws the company was incorporated. Exist aware that the state of incorporation and the state in which the company is located may not exist the aforementioned.

For Maryland corporations, call the function of the Department of Assessments and Revenue enhancement, Corporation Division in Baltimore at (410) 767-1340.
Goldsheet's U.S. State Resources on the Goldsheet Obsolete Securities Page provides links and phone numbers to other U.S. land (and Canadian provincial) agencies that handle corporate records.

Many states have gratis online databases of the businesses registered at that place, but others accuse. Each state is different.

The lack of a record doesn't hateful that the company no longer exists. It may accept abandoned its charter in one state and reincorporated in another. Records are not cross-referenced amongst different states, so the original country of incorporation may not exist able to tell you if a company has relocated.

The presence of a stock certificate means that a visitor has incorporated, only it does not necessarily mean that information will be readily bachelor or that a company is public.

Individual or closely held companies do not sell their stock to the public.
Unlisted companies can sell their stock to the public merely are not listed on stock exchanges.
Nigh company data that is published covers the small-scale number of companies whose stock is traded on one of the major stock exchanges.
Details nigh unlisted and individual companies are frequently hard to observe.

What is Scripophily?

The hobby of collecting old stock and bond certificates is called scripophily (pronounced scri-POPH-i-ly). Some stock certificates that are worthless as securities may have value as collectibles:

because of the people who signed them or owned them.
because of an interest in history.
because of the design or quality of the engraving.

You can find collectors and dealers in such sources equally:

Goldsheet's Scripophily Dealers and Organizations on the Goldsheet Obsolete Securities Folio. A personal page with citations and links to publications, state and Canadian province corporate records registries, collectors, dealers, and organizations. Some accept posted catalogs online.
The International Bond and Share Guild
Your local library for data on the hobby and for toll guides
eBay, or local antique dealers, peculiarly ones who specialize in old currency, stamps, or coins.

Further Assistance

If you lot need more than information, your local library may be able to aid. Y'all'll need to provide them with either:

the name of the visitor
the date of the document
the state of incorporation

or:

a copy of the certificate

If y'all still can't detect what happened to a company using these sources, you may choose to have the stock of incorporated companies searched by a fee-based company that specializes in that kind of research. For names and addresses of stock search firms, go to the Goldsheet Obsolete Securities Page mentioned to a higher place.

Some stock search firms charge every bit much as $75 per company and use many of the same sources located at your local library. Nevertheless, these companies can search records in other places not accessible to libraries, such every bit bankruptcy courts and state unclaimed property offices. Remember that some companies may have generated and retained their own records over a period of many years.

More Information

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