AboutPaul Henneman Expertise Stock forecasting and fair market valuations.
Experience
Past/Present clients CBSMarketwatch.com, Hoovers.com, Multexinvestor.com, Bank of NY, numerous hedge funds and institutions, other partners and clients can be viewed at http://www.valuengine.com/about/careers.html
Question I'm visiting England and helping my mother clean her home for a sale. Found two old Certificates. One in my grandfather's name and the other in my grandmother's. They both died about a decade ago. One is 40 shares of Lever Brothers dated February, 1927... the other is 100 shares of The Gas Light and Coke Company dated August, 1945. The first company merged with a Dutch company and became Unilever. The second company became British Gas. Am I rich or are these novelties? Any assistance is greatly appreciated.
Answer David,
Thank you for your question!
The only way to know if those certificates are still worth something is to contact the company if it still exists. Even if the company merged, was acquired, or changed names you should still contact the present form of the company. If the company still trades publicly, you have a chance. If the company is now private and does not trade on public markets, then your chances diminish, and if the company no longer exists at all your certificates won't be worth anything, except possibly to collectors. There are certificate collectors out there, run a google search for stock certificates and you will find websites that auction certificates. Even Ebay has many listed, so the worse case scenario is that you could sell the certificates themselves. There is a dramatic range of worth for old certificates.
