Expert: Paul Henneman - 1/14/2009

Question
I just came across an old stock certificate of my father's dated June 26, 1961.  The company is Old Empire Inc and the corporate seal shows New Jersey 1954.  Can you tell me if the shares have any value.  Thanks.

Answer
Thank you for your question!

Yes, there are several things that you can do to see if an old certificate is worth anything.

The first thing is to determine if the company still trade publicly. You can search by company name on http://finance.yahoo.com to see if they are listed and have a stock price associated with them. If they are listed, then your certificates have value.

If you cannot find them listed, then the second step is to try to determine if the company has been purchased or merged with another publicly traded company. If so, it is possible that it still trades but under a different name. Try google searching the company name, and see if you can locate any stories or news releases along these lines. If you do find something, your certificates values may be tied to the new company.

If the above two do not work, it is likely that the certificates have no value, but not a certainty. The only way to be sure is to have a professional search done.  There are several small companies who will research old certificates, but they do charge small fees. Here is a link to a website that lists some of the search services:
http://www.sec.gov/answers/oldcer.htm
The above site is created and hosted by the SEC, so should be completely reliable.

The overall goal in all of this is to see if the company still trades, and if it does for you to contact the investor relations department of that company. Almost all public companies have a person or department that handles investor relations, and they will have the information relating to exactly how much your certificates are worth, and what to do with them.  You cannot simply take the number of shares and multiply by the current stock price if it currently trades. Much time has passed since the certificates you mention were created, so the stock may have split one or more times since then, affecting the overall value in different ways.

I hope that this helps gets you started! In the vast majority of cases, old certificates turn out to not be worth anything. But there certainly are exceptions to that rule.  Please do not hesitate to follow up with me if I can be of any additional service,

Sincerely,
Paul Henneman
President
ValuEngine Inc
www.ValuEngine.com