Old Stock Certificates

[Tandemlovers]

My father recently passed away, and among his assets we found 350 shares of
Dyco Chemical and Coatings, a paint company located in St. Petersburg Florida
that is still in existence. The shares were purchased in the late 1970's.

After some poking around on the web, I found its symbol, DCOC, among a list
of deleted stocks, and was unable to find any historical pricing information.

According to Investopedia, we can get some idea of the worth, if any, of the
certificates by contacting the transfer agent, listed on the share certificate,
and using the Cusip number.

Does anyone have any experience in this sort of thing? Would it be more efficient
to contact the company directly? If the stock no longer exists on an exchange, does
that mean the shares are worthless?

Thanks very much for the help,
Martha

 

[courtjustshan]

Old stock certs

My Dad had the exact same thing happpen, except with shares of AT&T. He contacted the transfer agent and the shares were still valid and worth about $70K in his situation, so please pursue, I think you will be pleasantly surprised!!

Scott

 

[MRG]

The TA should have that information. Definitely not the company, unless it was part of some form of compensation. Even then I believe the company hands that off to the TA. When you talk with TA, probably a good idea to ask about non-certificated shares that might be held from reinvested dividends.

Edit - To your point if the company was de-listed. Step 1 TA, Step 2 contact the company. I've only been involved once with a de-listed issue, I received payment. This happened at the time of the de-listing. Either way pursue these certs.

MRG

 

[Tandemlovers]

The TA should have that information. Definitely not the company, unless it was part of some form of compensation. Even then I believe the company hands that off to the TA. When you talk with TA, probably a good idea to ask about non-certificated shares that might be held from reinvested dividends.

Edit - To your point if the company was de-listed. Step 1 TA, Step 2 contact the company. I've only been involved once with a de-listed issue, I received payment. This happened at the time of the de-listing. Either way pursue these certs.

MRG

MRG, we are not sure when the company went private, and believe it was sometime within the last 10-15 years.

The stock certificate lists the issue as "authorized capital stock," if that makes any difference.

My father was not an employee of the company.

Found this online:

For investors who neglect, forget, or otherwise do not take advantage of the tender offer, there is some recourse after the shares have been delisted. Each firm has a transfer agent who handles administrative proceedings of the company, such as issuing, canceling, and processing stock certificates. As long as an investor can provide an authentic, numbered stock certificate to the transfer agent, the certificate might be redeemed. However, if the terms of the tender offer explicitly bar shareholders who do not submit their shares on time, the shares will effectively be rendered worthless.

Thanks for your help, this has actually been an interesting subject to pursue, whether the shares are worth anything or not!

Martha

 

[W2R]

Wow, researching these companies would be over my head. If you want to sell them, perhaps ScottTrade or someplace similar would do the research for you.

 

[mpeirce]

Fidelity was very helpful to me a few years back.

I was getting my Grandma's things in order and there were some a few stock certificates in her safe deposit box. I turned them over to Fido and they put them into her new account with them. There were some old warrants that after some checking by them, turned out to be worthless (they wouldn't have been if she had acted on them many years ago, but oh well...).

Nearly zero effort on my part.

 

[GrayHare]

If the stock turns out to be worthless, you can take a tax deduction as a capital loss in the tax year it became worthless. However if that was more than 3 tax years ago, I believe you cannot file an amended return to claim a loss that far in the past.

 

[sailor]

If the stock turns out to be worthless, you can take a tax deduction as a capital loss in the tax year it became worthless. However if that was more than 3 tax years ago, I believe you cannot file an amended return to claim a loss that far in the past.

Couldn't you still do a mother-in-law maneuver in that case, since the loss was not realized?
Explained here for example: Deduct Your Worthless Stock

 

[Tandemlovers]

Fidelity was very helpful to me a few years back.

I was getting my Grandma's things in order and there were some a few stock certificates in her safe deposit box. I turned them over to Fido and they put them into her new account with them. There were some old warrants that after some checking by them, turned out to be worthless (they wouldn't have been if she had acted on them many years ago, but oh well...).

Nearly zero effort on my part.

Thanks for the comment.

Part of my father's estate is with Vanguard, and it would be worth asking them if they could assist.

Martha

 

[Tandemlovers]

Couldn't you still do a mother-in-law maneuver in that case, since the loss was not realized?
Explained here for example: Deduct Your Worthless Stock

It would take some research to figure out what Dad paid for the stock shares, but I will
pass this along to my siblings. At least we would have until the end of the year to figure
out what the capital loss would be, before we would file his final tax return.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Martha

 

[MichaelB]

Don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but it is possible the certificates have no value. Companies track shares and in the case of a buy out or going private they could have paid the outstanding share value without asking for return of the paper certificates. It is always worth the effort to see if they still have value, but these eggs may be best counted after they hatch.

 

[GrayHare]

Couldn't you still do a mother-in-law maneuver in that case, since the loss was not realized?
Explained here for example: Deduct Your Worthless Stock

Only if the shares are not worthless. If they are worthless, the deduction has to happen in the tax year they became worthless, not on the final tax return of the decedent's estate.

 

[Tandemlovers]

Thanks for everyone's help. I've suggested to my brother that he ask Vanguard for their assistance.

It is my feeling that despite the continued existence of the company, my Dad probably missed the
opportunity to cash in the shares when the company became privately held. I have asked my brother
see if he could contact the transfer agent, the most obvious place to start.

Martha

 

[imoldernu]

Old Stock Certificates -
Maybe not for the redemption value, but for the collectors' and historical value.
Scripophily is the term.

Original early stocks may have value beyond the cash value... ie. an old (valueless for redemption) E.F. Hutton stock certificate is worth nearly $500 to collectors, and a 1990 Compaq Computer stock is worth $189.

Wiki, for a good overview, and this for one of many websites dealing with Old Stocks

http://scripophily.net/

 

[pb4uski]

Thanks for everyone's help. I've suggested to my brother that he ask Vanguard for their assistance.

It is my feeling that despite the continued existence of the company, my Dad probably missed the opportunity to cash in the shares when the company became privately held. I have asked my brother see if he could contact the transfer agent, the most obvious place to start.

Martha

I would contact the TA and if you have trouble doing that then the company. I did this recently for a stock certificate that I found in my great aunt's belongings. In her case the shares were in Lucent Technologies and after considering the exchange ratio of the Alcatel/Lucent merger, were worth very little so I didn't bother to chase it - but you never know. Even if the tender was a long time ago they may still redeem the shares.