Expert: Steven Taylor - 10/18/2011

Question
I have a certificate for 200 shares of Kirkland Lake Gold Mining Co. Ltd.  The date the certificate was issued was 1948.   
Grandfather died in 1965 and this certificate became part of his estate.  Nothing was ever done with any of the penny stock mining companies that he invested in.   This particular certificate warrants looking into because of the name being so similar to Kirkland Lake Gold INc.   Upon being called, they  responded that their company bears no relationship to this one.   How can I find out if this certificate has any value or has this company become defunct.
Thank you.
R. Perrotta.

Answer
Ruby, from the information I have available:

Kirkland Lake did a 1 for 5 reverse split and became Kirkland Minerals. Kirkland Minerals later did a 1 for 10 reverse split and became Groundstar Resources. Groundstar is still around. It currently trades for about 6 cents per share on the TSX Venture Exchange. You will need to contact the current transfer agent, Computershare (www.computershare.com) about the old certificates. However, if that 200 share certificate is the only one your Grandfather owned, it would only represent (after the consolidations) 4 shares of Groundstar, worth about 24 cents total. It is still worth contacting Computershare, however, as there might be other shares on the books for which he did not have the certificates.