Old stock certificates
A look at the certificates brought back a flood of memories. My first memory was how we were barely 5 months married and we already started investing. We spent $316.18 for 12 shares. In those days this was a lot of money. I remember how young and how timid we were while talking to the investment broker. Why did we buy those shares? I believe because my sponsor to the United States, Peg and Ran suggested that a utility company would be a good choice. And, they were right: throughout the years the company paid good dividends, it grew and it split several times.
Also, these certificates brought back the memory of the first apartment in Baltimore, MD, then the memory of meeting one of my best friends H, and the memory of starting my first job as a Librarian at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore.
The certificates also brought back the memory of how I got my first education in securities investment. You have to remember that I came from the former communist Yugoslavia. My parents worked the fields and any monies they made was always kept in cash in the bedroom between the nicely ironed and folded bed sheets. They knew about savings accounts, but they could not trust the system and the government that the money will still be there the next day. Us children were never allowed to touch those sheets or that money.
I came to the US in 1965 and I spent most of my holidays with the family of my sponsors, Peg and Ran, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My financial education started Christmas Eve 1967. After the celebration and after everyone went to sleep Peg and I stayed up and talked about all kind of things. At one point she was explaining how capitalism works and then that led to talk about stocks. She explained to me what stocks are and how by owning a stock one has ownership in a company. To me this was so new and so fascinating and I was soaking up everything she had to tell me. Than, the first working day after the holidays, Ran, her husband drove me to a brokerage office and showed me all the books that contained the stocks of the three exchanges: New York, American and Over-the-Counter. Each had volumes and volumes of books - one page per company. Again, I was fascinated. I could not understand them - yet - because my English was still poor, and than Ran told me to pick a company. Randomly I just picked one and it was an airline company. Right there and than he bought me my Christmas present: 4 shares of that airline company. Six months later, while back at college I got a phone call from Peg: "Sell your shares, they quadrupled in value!" The stocks were sold, and so started my introduction to a different way of investment.
No, I am not going to send these certificates to be traded in. I like the memories they bring and I like the picture on the certificates.
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