Old Stock Certificates | Texas State Securities Board (2024)

FAQs

Are old stock certificates still valid? ›

An old stock or bond certificate may still be valuable even if it no longer trades under the name printed on the certificate. The company may have merged with another company or simply changed its name.

The easiest way is to contact the company and ask it directly. You can usually find the number of the company or the name of the transfer agent on the company's website; generally, publicly listed corporations have an investor-relations link on their sites.

In order to cash in the stock, you need to fill out the transfer form on the back of the certificate and have it notarized. Once complete, send the notarized certificate to the transfer agent, who will register the stock to you as owner.

Unless it is valued by collectors, outdated financial certificates today have little value — except as family keepsakes. Some old oil company stocks have value to collectors, including some artistic rendering like this vignette from a Shell Oil Company engraved certificate.

You can search for details, like previous company names and the registered office address, free of charge. You should also check with the respective registrar to ensure that your certificates are still valid - a registrar being a place that hold details of the shares after they're offered to the public.

California law requires corporations, businesses, associations, financial institutions, and insurance companies (referred to as “holders”) to annually report and deliver property to the State Controller's Office if there has been no activity on the account or contact with the owner for a specified period of time ( ...

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.

Transfer Agent: Transfer agents keep records of who owns a company's stocks and bonds and how those stocks and bonds are held. Transfer agents also issue and cancel certificates to reflect changes in ownership, act as an go-between for the company and handle lost, destroyed, or stolen certificates.

Stock certificates do not expire. If you have a stock certificate that is extremely old of a company that still exists, that stock certificate is still valid and represents ownership in that company.

What to do with stock certificates when someone dies? ›

To facilitate a transfer, the executor will need a copy of the decedent's will or a letter from the probate court confirming that the beneficiary in question is indeed the person entitled to receive the shares. The executor must then send these documents to a transfer agent, who can complete the transfer of ownership.

To replace the physical certificate, shareholders must contact the company's stock transfer agent. 1 They may also be required to complete an affidavit of loss document. The corporation's investor relations department should be able to provide a shareholder with information on how to contact the transfer agent.

Search the name of the company that issued the stock or bond on the Secretary of State's website in the state where the company was located. That will tell you whether the company is still in business. If yes, contact the company.

Are they worthless or do they have investment value? ANSWER: Old stock certificates, especially those from defunct companies, are only worth the paper that they're printed on.

See the collection of old stock and bond certificates at Scripophily.com, which is the Internet's largest buyer and seller of old stock and bond certificates.

Share certificates don't have an expiry date. After it's issued, a share certificate remains valid until the shareholder named on it sells or transfers the shares. The certificate would then be cancelled and a new one issued to the person the shares were transferred to.