Beautifully engraved specimen stock certificate from Braniff Airways, Incorporated printed in 1968. This historic document was printed by the American Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of an allegorical woman and a Concorde SST. This item has the printed signatures of the Company's Chairman (Harding Lawrence) and Secretary, and is over 48 years old.
Certificate Vignette Braniff Airways, Inc. d/b/a Braniff International Airways was an American airline that operated from 1928 until 1982. Its routes were primarily in the midwestern and southwestern United States, Mexico, Central America, and South America. In the late 1970s it expanded to Asia and Europe. The airline ceased operations in May 1982 because high fuel prices and the Airline Deregulation Act of December 1978 rendered it noncompetitive. History from Wikipedia, Encyberpedia and OldCompany.com (old stock certificate research service) About Specimen Certificates 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 were 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.