Beautifully engraved certificate from the Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. printed in 1998.
This historic document was printed by the American Banknote Company and has an ornate border with vignettes of Marcus Goldman and Samuel Sachs and the Goldman Sachs office building.. This item has the printed signatures of the Company’s Chairman and Treasurer.
Goldman Sachs is one of the largest investment banks and brokerages in the world. Goldman Sachs was founded in 1869 by Marcus Goldman. His son-in-law, Samuel Sachs, later joined the firm in 1882 and his name joined the firm a few years later. Their pictures are seen of the stock certificate vignette.
- 1869: Marcus Goldman opens a one-room basement office on Pine Street in Lower Manhattan, starting as a commercial paper pioneer by buying promissory notes (IOUs) from local merchants and reselling them to New York banks.
- 1882–1885: Goldman brings in his son-in-law Samuel Sachs and son Henry Goldman, formally renaming the firm Goldman, Sachs & Co.
- 1896: The firm joined the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
- After 130 years operating as a private partnership, Goldman Sachs completes its initial public offering (IPO), listing on the NYSE under the ticker GS and raising roughly $3.7 billion.
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.
