Until electronic trading came along, companies sold shares of their companies to investors and gave them paper certificates as proof of ownership. In the U.S., collectors call them stock certificates. Collectors outside the U.S. seem to prefer the term share certificates.

Stock ownership is normally simple, so stock certificates need minimal text to explain ownership. Whoever owns a company’s stock certificate owns a specific portion, or share, of that company.

In the last few years, many major companies have stopped issuing paper certificates in favor of electronic transactions. Paper stock certificates are becoming extinct among large corporations.

(You can still buy paper certificates of the stock certificates of some companies, but it will cost $50 to $75 in addition to the cost of the underlying shares.)

Antique stock certificates usually measure about 11 inches wide by eight inches tall. Size, however, varied from company to company. Some certificates were as small as today’s paper money while others were as large as supermarket tabloids.

With few exceptions, stock certificates were printed in horizontal format. That means the text is printed across the wide dimension of the paper.

The words stock and share appear on almost all stock certificates. Most certificates are worded similar to: