Beautifully engraved SPECIMEN certificate from the Pittston Company. This historic document was printed by the Columbian Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of men working in a mine. This item has the printed signatures of the Company's President and Secretary. 
Certificate Vignette The Pittston Company is a global business and security services company based in Richmond, Virginia. Pittston's business units, with approximately 50,000 employees, generated revenues of $3.8 billion in 2002 by providing outstanding service to customers in more than 120 countries. Pittston is in the process of changing its name to "The Brink's Company", to reflect the focus on premier business and security services. The name, Brink's, is synonymous throughout the world with integrity, trust, security, efficiency and world-class service. All of Pittston's core businesses are focused on protecting people and property -- at home, at work, or en route -- virtually anywhere in the world. In 1999, the company exited the coal business.
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 and realized nice appreciation in value 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 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 and realized nice appreciation in value over the past several years.
