Sooner or later, you will encounter certificates that look like they were officially issued, but lack one or more signatures. Many collectors ask whether such certificates were issued or not.

How can you tell whether a certificate was truly issued? It is sometimes hard to know. We can, however, make some general observations:

And then, depending on the historical period during which certificates were issued:

(For more discussion, see How can you tell if a certificate was issued or not?)

Most certificates from the early- to mid-1870s show revenue stamps. If the stamps were initialled or dated, you have a fairly reliable indication of issuance. Revenue stamps only appeared for a short period, so are not applicable to the vast majority of certificates.

Twentieth century certificates usually show signatures of trust company clerks. This is a substantially reliable method of telling whether certificates were issued.

The majority of officially-issued certificates were cancelled in some manner (holes, cuts, rubber stamps, ink pens, etc). By itself, cancellation does not prove certificate a certificate was issued. In order to prevent fraud, many "remainders" (unissued certificates left over from books of certificates) were also cancelled.

Many stock certificates were pasted onto stubs when they were sold and transferred. This allowed companies to know exactly how many outstanding certificates were unaccounted for. If a certificate otherwise looks issued, and is glued to a stub, you have nearly reliable proof of issuance. Stubs may have been removed to improve appearance, but you can usually see a remaining glue stain.

Let's attempt to form some general rules:

There are exceptions to every rule. To my knowledge, there are no 100% reliable rules. Some company somewhere broke every rule you can imagine. Some certificates escaped cancellation. Some never had corporate seals. Some were signed only by one officer. And so forth.

Stock certificates were always intended to be sold and transferred between owners. Theoretically, certificates should have been cancelled when transferred. Thousands of officially issued and transferred certificates escaped cancellation. In such instances, you will often be able to find signatures on the back. This gives us is another fairly reliable rule:

What if certificates look issued (impressed seals, and completely filled out), but lack one signature? A limited number of officially-issued certificates show single problems. However, I do not recall ever having seen certificates with two problems that I felt were officially issued. Consequently, I suggest:

What would cause missing signatures? With over 25,000 railroad companies known so far, the possibilities are staggering. Let's examine what could happen.

The vast majority of railroad companies did not last long. Therefore, most stock sales were concentrated within the first few months of most companies' existences. This means that most stock certificates were probably issued at times when operating controls were the least stringent. I do not have any proof, but I feel that most certificates missing signatures tend to show low serial numbers.

I also suspect (again with no hard proof) that most certificates with missing signatures correspond with periods of high company stress. Periods of high stress could coincide with bankruptcy and reorganization. Except for companies that were sold or leased soon after incorporation, every company went through periods of stress.

Times that would strain corporate controls probably correspond with bank failures, financial panics, and stock runs. It was common during the 19th century to have huge stock sell-offs driven by rumor and innuendo, only to have those same companies gobbled up by big stock operators such as Jay Gould, James Fisk, Daniel Drew, and J.P. Morgan.

Stock runs often had nothing to do with the market or the companies involved. The perception of financial health was commonly controlled by large brokerages. Periods of high turnover of securities were perfect times for signature and issuance errors.

Let's not forget that many - maybe even most - stressful periods might be as prosaic as snow storms, heat waves, broken water pipes, fires, union strikes, the flu, missing the trolley, or the boss having a bad day.

The process of issuing stock certificates. While examples almost certainly exist, I have never encountered missing signatures on 20th century certificates.

Looking further back, I have never found a single reference that precisely explained how certificates were issued in the 1800s. By examining the handwriting, though, we can see that several people, as many as four or five, were often involved in issuing stock.

The majority of issued examples suggest that company presidents signed many certificates at once. A large number of partially-issued certificates suggest that company presidents often signed stacks of certificates before any other details or signatures were added.

Treasurers' signatures may have come next. Again, numbers of unissued remainders suggest that treasurers' signatures often predated other details.

Handwriting similarities on many certificates suggests that many treasurers filled in dates, owner's names, and numbers of shares. However, this is no hard and fast rule because a larger number of certificates show third handwriting styles probably attributable to lower-salary clerks. Third handwriting styles are normally more precise and easier to read than treasurers' and presidents' signatures.

It appears that clerks or treasurers impressed corporate seals next. Corporate seals were important and were applied by carefully-guarded company tools. I suspect that treasurers made the seal impressions in most small and medium sized companies.

By the 20th century, and especially by the late 1920s, stock sales and transferrance became a hugely burdensome task for successful companies. At about that time, it appears that stock issuance began shifting to trust companies. Certificates requiring hand signatures began disappearing and were replaced by certificates with pre-printed facsimile signatures.

Once trust companies became involved, the number of ambiguously-issued certificates dropped substantially. Because of this relationship, I suggest:

Were two signatures truly necessary? This is a hard question to answer. There were over 25,000 railroad companies with over 25,000 different ways of doing business. Small companies probably took a more trusting approach to stock sales. With possibly fewer than 25 stockholders, precise application of signatures on stock certificates on very small companies was unnecessary.

In a related manner, we need to remember that all but a miniscule handful of American companies issued "registered" stock. Company records of ownership always prevailed. Under the registration system of stock ownership, company records were the ultimate protections against security forgery.

What about missing signatures on bonds? The important of signatures on bonds are vastly modified for two reasons.

• Issued bonds involved large, sometimes huge, amounts of money.
• Most bonds issued prior to the 1890s were bearer bonds. Anyone who owned bearer bonds could sell them, regardless of how they acquired them.

For those reasons we see very, very few examples of signatures missing from issued bonds. Yes, some examples exist. However, it is my experience that:

In conclusion... I want to stress that we can NEVER know the reason why certificates are missing signatures. But,