Beautiful engraved specimen certificate from the De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited. This historic document was printed by Security Columbian Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it with their name on top center. De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd The group is involved in the mining and marketing of gem and industrial diamonds. de Beers controls the world diamond trade through the London based Central Selling Organisation. The company has interests in 18 African diamond mines, while its Central Selling Organization unit (the "diamond cartel") controls 70% of the world's diamond production. The company has invested in nondiamond enterprises such as gold and copper mining and industrial and financial firms. De Beers Consolidated Mines -- along with De Beers Centenary, which oversees the company's interests outside South Africa -- is controlled by South African mining giant Anglo American Corp. and its ruling Oppenheimer family.
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.
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.
