Beautifully engraved SPECIMEN certificate from the First Mortgage Corporation. This historic document was printed by Thomas de la Rue and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of the company logo. This item has the printed signatures of the Company's President and Secretary. 
Certificate Vignette First Mortgage Corporation is an independent residential Mortgage Banking corporation with loan offices throughout the west. First Mortgage Corporation is a direct lender, not a broker, so there are no middleman broker fees or charges. Founded in 1975, the company is a direct-lending mortgage banker approved as a lender and loan servicer by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA); the Veterans Administration (VA); the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae); the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac); the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae); the California Housing Finance Agency (CHFA); the Nevada Housing Division; the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS); the California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS); and several other major secondary market institutions.
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 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.
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 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.
