Beautifully engraved SPECIMEN certificate from Kelly Services, Inc. This historic document was printed by the Security-Colombian Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it. This item has the printed signatures of the Company's Chairman of the Board ( William Russell Kelly )and Secretary. In October 1946, with an office in Detroit, Michigan, and two employees, William Russell Kelly started a new company to meet the office and clerical needs of Detroit-area businesses. "Russell Kelly Office Service" provided calculating and inventory services, typing and copying. Most of this work was cyclical, so Mr. Kelly staffed his company with housewives and students -- people who had flexible schedules. By December of 1946, the Russell Kelly Office Service had 12 customers and $848 in sales. Today, Kelly Services, Inc. is a Fortune 500 staffing services company headquartered in Troy, Mich., offering human resources solutions that include temporary services, staff leasing, outsourcing, vendor on-site and full-time placement. With more than 2,400 company owned and operated offices in 26 countries, Kelly provides to its customers nearly 700,000 employees annually, with skills including office services, accounting, engineering, information technology, law, science, marketing, light industrial, education and home care. Sales in 2002 were $4.1 billion.
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.
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.
