Australian, Mercantile, Land & Finance Company 1911

Beautifully engraved SPECIMEN certificate from the Australian, Mercantile, Land & Finance Company dated 19XX. This historic document was printed by Bradbury, Wilkinson & Company Limited

The Australian Mortgage Land & Finance Company was registered in England in 1863, the first Australian Office being opened in Brisbane (as Central Northern Qld Land Company). The Qld operations proving unsuccessful, the business was moved to Melbourne with the purchase of Ronald Gibbs & Co in 1865. The Brisbane branch was reopened in 1903, and a Townsville Branch in 1924 (to 1934). The Company’s name was changed in 1910 to Australian Mercantile Land & Finance Co (AML&F). In 1981 AML&F acquired the pastoral agency business of Australian Estates from CSR Ltd. In 1971 AML&F was acquired by Woodhall Trust plc (UK), which in turn was taken over by Elders IXL in 1982.

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About Specimens

Specimen Certificates are actual certificates that have never been issued. They were usually kept by the printers in their permanent archives as their only example of a particular certificate. Sometimes you will see a hand stamp on the certificate that says "Do not remove from file".

Specimens were also used to show prospective clients different types of certificate designs that were available. Specimen certificates are usually much scarcer than issued certificates. In fact, many times they are the only way to get a certificate for a particular company because the issued certificates were redeemed and destroyed. In a few instances, Specimen certificates were made for a company but were never used because a different design was chosen by the company.

These certificates are normally stamped "Specimen" or they have small holes spelling the word specimen. Most of the time they don't have a serial number, or they have a serial number of 00000. This is an exciting sector of the hobby that has grown in popularity over the past several years.