Stock certificates used to be the standard way of denoting ownership in a publicly held company, but that has changed dramatically during the past decade as the securities industry has shifted to electronic record-keeping to reduce costs.   This page shows you some of the stock certificates that are now great collectibles.   

In addition to the paperless movement, mergers, bankruptcies and simply having the company change their stock certificate design can impact the supply and demand of a company's stock certificate. 

This is a contributing factor the rising popularity of Scripophily,  the hobby of collecting of old stock and bond certificates.   The ornate designs, logo's, printed signatures, and even the issue date can impact the collectible value of a stock.  Enron's stock certificates with Kenneth Lay's (convicted in the scandal) printed signature is highly sought after.  "We have recently seen people buying Playboy stock for Hugh Hefner's printed signature given his age" said Leslie Roman, Founder of GiveAshare.com.

Get the latest about about the elimination of stock certificates.