Henderson Bridge Company - Louisville, Kentucky 1881

Beautifully engraved certificate from the Henderson Bridge Company issued in 1881. This historic document was printed by American Bank Note Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of a train crossing the bridge with 2 paddlewheelers below. This item is over 123 years old and has 100 coupons attached not shown in the scan.






Certificate Vignette

In 1872, a charter for the construction of a bridge between Evansville and Henderson had been issued to the Henderson Bridge Company.

In 1879, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad bought out the St. Louis and Southeastern renaming it the Henderson Division of the L&N, shortly afterward, secured control of the Henderson Bridge Company, which had proposed the building of a railroad bridge across the Ohio River.

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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 we 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 grown in popularity and realized nice appreciation in value over the past several years.