Beautifully engraved certificate from the Diana Stores Corporation 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. This item has the printed signatures of the Company's President and Secretary.
Certificate Vignette Great Eastern Mills sold its business and its 50 percent share of Great Eastern Linens to Diana Stores Corporation, a ladies' apparel store chain with a strong market position in the southern United States. Thereupon, Diana Stores opened a chain of stores, named Miller's Discount Department Stores, in which Great Eastern Linens operated the linen and curtain department. Diana Stores later sold its company and its 50 percent interest in Great Eastern Linens to Beverly Hills-based Daylin Inc., a national chain of department stores that leased departments for health and beauty aids. History from Wikipedia 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. This is an exciting sector of the hobby that has grown in popularity over the past several years.