The Washington Post is currently featured in the movie “The Post” with Meryl Streep staring as Post publisher Katharine Graham. The Post published the Pentagon Papers in 1971 when Katharine Graham risked their IPO over what she felt was fake news being presented by the U.S, Government regarding the Vietnam War.

Meryl Streep stars as Post publisher Katharine Graham
in the movie “The Post” holding Washington Post Stock Certificate

Beautiful engraved stock certificate from the Washington Post Company issued in 1971. This historic document was printed by American Bank Note Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of the capitol building and President George Washington. This item has the printed signatures of the Company’s President, Katharine Graham and Secretary, Alan Fineburg and is over 47 years old.

“The Post” film takes place in 1971 and chronicles how The Washington Post defied the Nixon administration to publish news accounts based on the Pentagon Papers, a secret government study about the Vietnam War.

This beautifully engraved stock certificate is from the Washington Post Company and was printed by American Bank Note Company with an ornate border around it with a vignette of the capitol building. This item has the printed signatures of the Company’s President, Katharine Graham and Secretary, Alan Fineburg and is over 47 years old.

The Washington Post Company history dates back to 1877, when the Post was first published. The Washington Post Company was incorporated in the District of Columbia in 1889, and remained a District of Columbia corporation until it changed its state of incorporation to Delaware in 2003. It was a company, trading on the New York Stock Exchange that went public in 1971. The company is headquartered in Washington, D.C. near the corporate offices of Scripophily.com.

The newspaper’s slogan is, “Democracy dies in darkness”. Daily editions are printed for the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. The newspaper has won 47 Pulitzer Prizes. In the early 1970s, in the best-known episode in the newspaper’s history, reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein led the American press’ investigation into what became known as the Watergate scandal; reporting in the newspaper greatly contributed to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

In 2013, its longtime controlling family, the Graham family, sold the newspaper to billionaire entrepreneur and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos for $250 million in cash. The newspaper is owned by Nash Holdings LLC, a holding company Bezos created for the acquisition.

Katharine Graham (Kay Graham) was one of the most powerful women in American media. Her mother, Agnes Meyer, was an educator and her father, Eugene Meyer, was a publisher. He purchased The Washington Post in 1933, and Katharine Meyer began working for the Post five years later. She married Philip Graham in 1940, and in 1945 left the Post to raise her family. In the next few years Philip Graham became publisher of the Post and bought out Eugene Meyer’s voting stock. During this time the Washington Post Company also acquired the Times-Herald and Newsweek magazine.

From 1973-1991 Graham, known to many as “Kay,” was board chairman and chief executive officer of the Washington Post Company, and remained Chairman of the Executive Committee until her death.

Under Katharine Graham’s leadership, The Washington Post became known for its hard-hitting investigations, including the publication of the secret Pentagon Papers against the advice of lawyers and against government directives, followed by the Woodward and Bernstein investigation of the Watergate scandal. For these reasons, she and the newspaper are sometimes credited with bringing about the fall of Richard Nixon.

Stock certificates are collected and given as gifts because of their historical significance, beauty and artwork, autographs, notoriety, as well as many other factors. The supply of new certificates reaching the collector market has been substantially reduced due to changes in state laws and stock exchanges rules. Many companies are no longer required to issue physical stock and bond certificates, a process called “dematerialization.”

Scripophily (scrip-ah-fil-ly) is the name of the hobby of collecting old stock and bond certificates. Certificate values range from a few dollars to more than $500,000 for the most unique and rare items. Tens of thousands of Scripophily buyers worldwide include casual collectors, corporate archives, business executives, museums and serious collectors. Due to the computer age, more and more stock and bonds are issued electronically which means fewer paper certificates are being issued. As a result, demand for paper certificates is increasing while supply is decreasing.

Our company has been featured on CNBC, USA Today, Associated Press, Reuters, Nightline, Today Show, Baltimore Sun, and Washington Post and in many other media publications. Scripophily.com has items on display in museums around the world.

Scripophily.com has partnered with The Museum of American Finance, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, with an educational program, Sharing Stocks, to place primary source documents in local classrooms. Scripophily.com (OldCompany.com) and Scott J. Winslow Associates, Inc. have sponsored free stock certificates for social studies teachers throughout the New York area.

Scripophily.com /Old Company Research Service, founding member of the Old Stock Exchange, is the successor company to all material published by the Marvyn Scudders Manuals, the Robert D. Fisher Manuals, R.M. Smythe Stock Research Service, and the Herzog & Co., Inc. obsolete research services. These services have been performed continuously for over 138 years since 1880. We are the leading provider of authentic stock certificates, autographs, and old company stock research services.

Scripophily.com and Old Company Research Services was founded by Bob Kerstein (Bob.com). Bob is a CPA and CGMA, and has more than 42 years of senior management experience in the Cellular, Cable TV, Satellite, Internet, Professional Sports and Entertainment Industries. Bob is also the President of the Professional Scripophily Traders Association (PSTA), Co Founder of ScripophilyUSA.org and a member of the International Bond and Share Society.

For more information on Scripophily.com®, visit https://www.scripophily.com, https://www.oldcompany.com, https://www.scripophily.net, http://www.rambo.com, http://www.bob.com or call 1-703-787-3552

March 2017

Bob Kerstein, CEO of Virginia-based Scripophily.com holding a Cuban stock certificate

Even years after the Revolution, even after the companies were nationalized, shareholders of the Camaguey Sugar
Company of Cuba, the Cuban Portland Cement Corporation, and the 7up Company of Cuba, Inc. continued to hold
onto–and even trade-their increasingly worthless stocks and bonds. “Cuba is interesting because the bonds were still traded after Castro took over, until [the holders] realized they could never be redeemed,” says Bob Kerstein, Virginia-based CEO of scripophily. com, a company that specializes in the sale of original stock certificates. “After Castro took over Cuba the prices were way down, but they were still hoping the U.S. would invade.” Today those stocks and bonds are experiencing a small rally. Collectors seek them as valuable mementos, like baseball cards from Cuba’s capitalist past. “It’s picked up recently because of the opening of ties and our relationship with Cuba,” says Kerstein. “These are pieces of history, and they all tell a story.”

Scripophily.com sells about two dozen different Cuban financial certificates, including ones from railways, power companies, hotels, and banks, all long gone. Prices range from $9.95 for a Camaguey Sugar Company stock certificate (100 shares!) to $295 for a 100 peso bond issued in 1882 by a railroad company in Guantanamo. Kerstein says shares from sugar companies are the most popular. Kerstein is far from alone in catering to a growing interest in collectibles from Cuba’s past, and the mystique of its memories.

Leslie Pantin, a Miami-based PR professional, is also the proprietor of the annual Cuba Nostalgia show. Last year the fair attracted 30,000 visitors who came for the sights and sounds of Cuba’s past, including a chance to buy memorabilia. “With everything that is happening in Cuba there is a fascination with Cuban things, all over the place,” says Pantin, who has put on the weekend-long show for the past 18 years. “The difference now is that when we started, there were people who just sold memorabilia, something that was in their Florida room or in their garage. Now we have a lot of people who
do this as a business.”

On Miami’s Coral Way, for example, a store called the Cuban Museum sells everything from old Havana phone books to silverware from the presidential palace (now the Museum of the Revolution). The store also sells stocks and bonds, but don’t have quite the range as Kerstein. Kerstein’s catalogue of offerings includes certificates from numerous times
and places in history, but he gets a special kick out of his Cuban collectibles, which he acquires at auctions, from private individuals, and “as we come across them.” “About 15 years ago I got a lot from an old warehouse,” says Kerstein. “Victor
Astor was big in Cuba at one time, and many of them had his name on them.” And for a mere $34.95 customers can own a 100-share stock certificate issued in 1947 by Victor, son of hotel magnate John Jacob Astor, for the Vertientes-Camaguey
Sugar Company of Cuba.

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