Beautifully engraved SPECIMEN certificate from the Coleman Lamp and Stove Company. This historic document was printed by the American Banknote Company around 1920 and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of the company logo between an angelic man and woman. 
Certificate Vignette Coleman Company, Inc. is a company that makes camping gear. It was founded by W. C. Coleman, who began selling lamps in 1900 in Kingfisher, Oklahoma and moved to Wichita, Kansas in 1902. The Coleman Company's headquarters are in Wichita, and it also has facilities in Texas. There are approximately 1500 employees. Throughout its history, Coleman has produced a wide variety of equipment primarily aimed at the camping and recreational markets. Perhaps their most famous product is the Coleman Lamp, a series of lamps that burn kerosene, naptha, gasoline, or propane and use one or two mantles to produce an intense white light. Coleman also manufactures camp stoves, hot tubs, and the like. In the past they also sold pop-up travel trailers and the Hobie Cat brand of sailboats.
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 and realized nice appreciation in value 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 and realized nice appreciation in value over the past several years.
