Expert: Steven Taylor - 5/3/2011

Question
My Mom who is a senior found some old share certificates that she and my Dad had purchased.  I looked a few times for her on the internet and it appeared to me that old certificates like this have no value unless they re really old and then there may be value in the certificate itself. The part that bothers her is that even though a company changes hands, why aren't the new owners responsible for the people who own shares as owning a share is owning part of a company.
I have never found specific information on any of the companies. Could you shed any light on this for me? She has shares in
Westmont Silver Mines Ltd.
Con-Key Mines Ltd.
Cleveland Copper Corporation

Answer
Annie, from the information I have available:

I have no information at all on Westmont Silver Mines. I suggest you take the certificate to a broker and see if they can perform a detailed search for you.

Con-Key merged with several other companies and became Can-Con Enterprises. Can Con did a couple of name changes and reverse splits and became Visa Gold. Visa ran into serious trouble on several fronts, including with securities regulators, and was suspended, delisted, and cease-traded in 2003. Those cease-trade orders remain in effect today.

Cleveland Copper became Delta Minerals which had its charter cancelled in 1974. No value.

In terms of a company changing hands, the new company is, in fact, responsible for the old owners and the ownership should transfer. However, it can be difficult to find the owners of the old stock. People move, pass away, lose the certificates, etc. They send notification to the last known address of the holder, but sometimes it doesn't get there, and sometimes the holder ignores the letter. Many of the inquires I receive are from people that have the notification of the change, but never did anything about it. Also, when a company goes bust, they have no money to notify holders so the stock just quietly dies. This is a big reason why actual physical stock certificates are being phased out in favor of electronic holdings.