Beautiful engraved Gold Bond Specimen Certificate from the Colonial Filling Stations dated in 1923. This historic document was printed by American Bank Note Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of a Colonial Filling Station. This item has the printed signatures of the Company's President and Secretary and is over 96 years old. 20 coupons attached on right side. 
Certificate Vignette 
Ad from 1923 shown for illustrative purposes Colonial Filling Stations, Inc. was owned by Beacon Oil Company. The Colonial Beacon Oil Company was formed in 1928 through the merger of the Colonial Oil Company and the Beacon Oil Company. The company was located in Boston and had a extensive network of stations through out New England, Long Island and the eastern edge of upstate New York. In 1931, the Colonial Beacon Oil Company was purchased by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and used as their New England outlet for Esso gasoline.
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
Ad from 1923 shown for illustrative purposes
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.
