Purchasing Share Certificates

[Daf]

I recently have been seeing a bunch of sites that sell one share certificate. they look amazing and I think would be great to frame or to give as a present.

My questions a::

1) for American stocks should I use tirade to buy it and request the certificate or one f these site... Like oneshare.com?
2) are certificates the same
3) are there any cool ones u recommend that are on the Toronto exchange?

[Sylvestre]

Apparently if you have kids then Disney is a cool one.

Note that if you buy the shares and they pay a dividend, and its held in your name, your life gets difficult if you don't track the dividends properly. Worse so for US stocks.

1) dunno
2) no
3) I only own Enbridge. It's nothing spectacular but kinda cool.

[cjottawa]

I recently have been seeing a bunch of sites that sell one share certificate. they look amazing and I think would be great to frame or to give as a present.

My questions a::

1) for American stocks should I use tirade to buy it and request the certificate or one f these site... Like oneshare.com?
2) are certificates the same
3) are there any cool ones u recommend that are on the Toronto exchange?

Hey Daf.

A full list of companies with both DRIP and SPP (share purchase plan) on the TSX is here:
http://www.dripprimer.ca/canadiandriplist

I can't address the questions about US stocks other than "it's more complicated than Canadian" but I'll address the other questions.

Certificates don't look the same. Some are "generic" looking like something you'd buy at Staples and print onto. Boring. Not really worth framing. I'd say the majority are like that. (of the ones I've owned - about two dozen)

Some are mildly interesting - Imperial Oil, Sun Life Financial, Manulife, and RioCan have some silk screened graphics in duo-tone. (black + one colour).

One that I've seen that's cool: Enbridge (ENB). Here's a link to a sample from the Enbridge web site:


The gray area on the share certificate is where the recipient's name would be printed.

If you want to get someone a gift that's more than just a certificate, set them up with the DRIP and SPP with the company the share was issued by.

There's more on that on the DRIP board: http://dripinvesting.org/boards/boards.asp

The process is easy for buying - find someone with extra share they're willing to sell, send them money (Interac EFT works), provide them with the address and name to register the share to (the person you're gifting, for example - exact spelling of name is critical) and wait for the share to arrive.

The heavy lifting is done by the sender. More on that here: http://www.finiki.org/wiki/Dividend_Reinvestment_Plan

[Daf]

I started looking on those boards- but I feel hesitant, and afraid to do that.. I'd love to get some share certificates to hang, and also some to start a drip... Weren't u afraid while using that board?

Thanks so much for your detailed response.

[morpheiz]

CJ do you have anything for sale?

[Kaitlyn]

Dare I ask... why are any of you interested in share certificates? What's the point?

[Daf]

Artwork to frame around the house? I think there pretty cool...look at Disney stocks.

[morpheiz]

I want to start DRIPing partial shares instead of synthetic dripping whole shares.
In my brokerage accounts, dividends aren't enough to buy 1 whole shares

This is for buy and hold

[Sylvestre]

Dare I ask... why are any of you interested in share certificates? What's the point?

I did it for the kids. One share in each of their names. Figured it'd make a cool present when they are older plus hopefully teach them something eventually.

But if the cost is around 10 bucks plus the cost of the first share, and afterwards you can buy and drip for free, then why the heck not? Beats having a discount brokerage w/ fees for each purchase and no fractional drips. Only downside is tax complications.

[daverobev]

Anyone interested in selling a single share?

I joined the Ottawa google group but it seems fairly dead.

I'd like an Enbridge one, actually! Or a Transalta.

[Daf]

I will have a rio can one to sell at the beginning of next month and then shortly after that I will have a BCE and and/ or a BMO one if your interested?

[SkimGuy]

I see a ton of them at work. Most of them are people and boring lol

[brunes]

If you want to avoid the hassle of setting this up yourself you can just go to oneshare.com or giveashare.com .. they will take care of all of the details and even frame it, etc.

Oneshare.com in particular has been doing this for like a decade and are very reputable.

It's worth pointing out - paper share certificates are dying and they become collectable items. It will not be long before shares from companies like Disney can no longer be purchased as paper. A good example of this is Facebook... they were originally going to do share certificates, and OneShare.com had tens of thousands of pre-orders, because a company like that is the exact market they are in (names of companies everyone knows or uses).. but then, Facebook ended up not issuing paper certificates at all.

[daverobev]

If you want to avoid the hassle of setting this up yourself you can just go to oneshare.com or giveashare.com .. they will take care of all of the details and even frame it, etc.

Oneshare.com in particular has been doing this for like a decade and are very reputable.

It's worth pointing out - paper share certificates are dying and they become collectable items. It will not be long before shares from companies like Disney can no longer be purchased as paper. A good example of this is Facebook... they were originally going to do share certificates, and OneShare.com had tens of thousands of pre-orders, because a company like that is the exact market they are in (names of companies everyone knows or uses).. but then, Facebook ended up not issuing paper certificates at all.

Not sure either of those sites have any Canadian companies though..?

It's not the physical share I'm that fussed about, it's the DRIP with discount, but anyway!

[daverobev]

I will have a rio can one to sell at the beginning of next month and then shortly after that I will have a BCE and and/ or a BMO one if your interested?

I'll send you a PM!