Some Specimen Stocks And Bonds

Wonderful group and great flat photos.

Hello Show -- welcome to the new sub-forum! I think specimens are pretty nice myself. Sometimes these are the only remaining examples of a particular stock or bond variety. And some varieties were never issued, just designed in advance, and then the client decided they didn't like the design or the color or the bond type wasn't needed after all.

American Bank Note company (and I assume other banknote printers) kept extensive archives with specimens of pretty much everything they produced. Here are specimens of an award certificate, a medicine bottle label, and a certification for an insurance agent.







Specimens were sometimes given out as sales samples, to show other clients what their stock or bond might look like. But ABNC always kept at least one specimen on file, which was stamped "Last Specimen--Reserve". Here's an example.



As for specimens retained by the business client, I suspect this was a legal requirement. If not, then most businesses at least wanted to have a sample for their files, in case they decided to have more printed, but chose to take the printing business somewhere else. (ABNC did great work, but they were the most expensive.)

Here's a specimen that was probably retained for legal reasons. On the back it's signed by the company secretary -- whose engraved facsimilie signature appears on the front.

Very nice!

Okay, some specimens of the smaller banknote companies. Most of these little fish eventually got swallowed by the larger firms like ABNCo and S-CBNCo.

Hamilton Bank Note Co. - New York


Republic Bank Note Co. - Pittsburgh


E.A. Wright Bank Note Co. - Philadelphia



Northern Bank Note Co. - Chicago


Central Banknote Co. - Chicago


Kihn Brothers Bank Note Co. - New York

Here are my only "foreign" specimens.

De La Rue Bank Note Co., well known London-based security printer, tried to enter the U.S. market in the 1960s under their own name and as Federated Bank Note Co. But they never got much traction and eventually gave up.







Bradbury Wilkinson & Co, also in London, was founded in 1856. The company was acquired by American Bank Note in 1903, but continued to use its own name until closing shop in 1990.

I've got those, too! :-) Much of my information comes out of "The Engraver's Line" and "The International Engraver's Line" both by Gene Hessler. These books are must-haves for collectors of stocks, bonds, and currency.

Okay, here's my oldest specimen (circa 1880) and the only one marked with a hand-written "Sample". It's from Excelsior Bank Note Company. Though it may not look like much, it is probably my rarest piece, too. In 30+ years of collecting, I've only seen one specimen bond from Excelsior and this is it. The company was only in existence for about 10 years; mostly likely it was founded with the hope of getting in on the printing of National Bank Notes (before the BEP brought everything in-house). But they didn't manage to secure any government contracts and quietly dried up.

I happen to have a vignette proof of "The Gleaner" which is how I spotted this specimen when I saw it up for bid.

Beautiful stuff.

Here's a neat one I forgot to post. Very small specimen bond from an obscure little Mexican railroad: