Beautifully engraved specimen certificate from St. Louis - San Francisco Railway Company printed in 1971. This historic document was printed by American Bank Note Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of Mercury a woman flying with a city in the background. This item is over 35 years old. 
Certificate Vignette The St. Louis & San Francisco Railway was incorporated in Missouri on September 7, 1876. It was formed from the Missouri Division and Central Division of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. After bankruptcy, the Frisco emerged as the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad, which was incorporated on 29 June 1896. This company, too, went bankrupt; on 24 August 1916, the company was reorganized as the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway. The St. Louis-San Francisco Railway had two main lines: St. Louis - Tulsa - Oklahoma City and Kansas City - Memphis - Birmingham. The junction of the two lines was in Springfield, Missouri. The Frisco was acquired by the Burlington Northern Railroad on November 21, 1980. History from Wikipeida and OldCompanyResearch.com.
About Specimens Specimen Certificates are actual certificates that have never been issued. They were usually kept by the printers in their permanent archives as their only example of a particular certificate. Sometimes you will see a hand stamp on the certificate that says "Do not remove from file". Specimens were also used to show prospective clients different types of certificate designs that were available. Specimen certificates are usually much scarcer than issued certificates. In fact, many times they are the only way to get a certificate for a particular company because the issued certificates were redeemed and destroyed. In a few instances, Specimen certificates we made for a company but were never used because a different design was chosen by the company. These certificates are normally stamped "Specimen" or they have small holes spelling the word specimen. Most of the time they don't have a serial number, or they have a serial number of 00000. This is an exciting sector of the hobby that grown in popularity over the past several years.
Certificate Vignette
About Specimens Specimen Certificates are actual certificates that have never been issued. They were usually kept by the printers in their permanent archives as their only example of a particular certificate. Sometimes you will see a hand stamp on the certificate that says "Do not remove from file". Specimens were also used to show prospective clients different types of certificate designs that were available. Specimen certificates are usually much scarcer than issued certificates. In fact, many times they are the only way to get a certificate for a particular company because the issued certificates were redeemed and destroyed. In a few instances, Specimen certificates we made for a company but were never used because a different design was chosen by the company. These certificates are normally stamped "Specimen" or they have small holes spelling the word specimen. Most of the time they don't have a serial number, or they have a serial number of 00000. This is an exciting sector of the hobby that grown in popularity over the past several years.
