Value of old stock certificate

Stock certificate might have value

Got an old stock certificate lying around the house or tucked away in a safe deposit box? These intriguing bits of paper often surface after a death when relatives sort through personal effects. The first question everyone asks is whether they are worth anything.

Usually the answer is "no," but there is always that outside possibility. Who can throw away a Lotto ticket without checking first to see if you won?

Solving stock mysteries takes legwork. You can try to do it yourself, and if you get stuck, you can pay someone to do it for you. You might locate a company just by tinkering with www.google.com and other Internet search engines or by calling your stockbroker. If you cannot find the company but you know the town where it once was located, you can turn detective, looking up state corporate records and calling local chambers of commerce, newspapers and libraries. Sometimes the reference desk of the public library in your town can help.

Maybe the company changed its name or merged with another company. Standard & Poor's says it has tracked more than 7,300 corporate name changes since 1979. Sometimes, though, only the assets of the old company are acquired and the company itself, the one that issued your shares, goes out of business. Sometimes companies go through bankruptcy reorganization and cancel their old shares.

And sometimes there are revolutions. One reader recently asked about his shares in Havana Racetrack, purchased in the early 1950s before Fidel Castro took control. "Will they ever be good?" he wanted to know.

Pierre Bonneau, who runs Stock Search International, was asked for an opinion:

"Even if Cuba were to become more America-friendly, there is little chance that companies that owned properties there would be able to claim them," he said. But Bonneau said that if the company also had assets outside Cuba, it might have survived and changed its name.

A stock certificate might be worthless as an investment but worth something as a collectible. Value depends on the artwork, age, historical significance, rarity and popularity of the subject matter.

"Cuban stocks have interest because of the history, but something which is run-of-the-mill, just a name on the piece of paper, may be worth $10 to $15," Bonneau said. "Something which has nice graphics may be worth $50 or $100."

For information about research services and collectibles, call Stock Search (www.stocksearchintl.com) toll-free at 1-800-537-4523 or Scripophily.com (www.scripophily.com) toll-free at 1-888-786-2576. Research costs $40 to $85 per company.

If you hang on to a certificate, keep a note with it explaining what you know about the company's history and the stock's value or lack thereof. Your heirs will thank you.