Liberty Media Corporation (Peter Barton as President) - Delaware

Beautifully engraved RARE Specimen certificate from the Liberty Media Corporation dated 1992. This historic document was printed by the Security Columbian Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it with the company's name on top center. This item has the printed signatures of the Company's President, Peter Barton and Secretary and is over 13 years old. This is the first time we have had this certificate for sale.

Peter Barton joined cable company Tele-Communications Inc. at the behest of TCI president John C. Malone, and for the next four years, negotiated cable franchises nationwide for the growing company. In 1986, Barton became president of TCI's Cable Value Network, which would evolve into the QVC shopping network, one of the dominant brands in cable television. In 1991, Barton became the founding president of TCI spin off Liberty Media Corp., which would eventually own stakes in dozens of cable-TV's most popular networks. Barton struck many of the deals that placed Liberty at the forefront of programming. In April 1997, Barton resigned from Liberty, started a private investmentfirm and began to spend more time with his family.

Liberty

1990 McCaw Cellular Communications acquires 52% interest in LIN Broadcasting

1990 Liberty Media formed as TCI's programming arm

1991 TCI buys Cooke Cablevision

1991 AT&T buys NCR for US$7.4bn

1991 Liberty Media floated, with Malone having 22% of equity (41% of votes)

1991 Liberty becomes partner in SportsChannel Chicago and SportsChannel Pacific

1992 Malone forecasts 500 channel universe in speech as Anaheim

1993 TCI subsidiary QVC makes unsuccessful bid for Paramount, subsequently acquired by Viacom

1993 TCI US$35 billion merger with Bell Atlantic abandoned

1994 TCI and Guinness Peat Group (GPG) pay $117m for Australian satellite tv licence and $216m for microwave tv licences across Australia

1994 McCaw acquired by AT&T for US$11.5bn

1994 LIN broadcasting stations spun off as LIN TV

1995 TCI swaps stake in Turner for 7.5% of Time Warner

1996 death of Magness, succeeded by John Malone

1996 Liberty Satellite established to sell satellite dishes

1996 TCI, Packer and Lenfest (later Comcast subsidiary) participate in unsuccessful rescue of Australis pay tv in Australia

1996 AT&T spins off Bell Laboratories as basis of Lucent Technologies

1996 sells NCR

1996 sells AT&T Capital Corporation (leasing unit) for US$1.8bn

1997 TCI buys newspaper and cable group Kearns-Tribune (which had 7% stake in TCI)

1997 AT&T sells Submarine Systems unit to Tyco for US$850m

1997 Liberty sells Southern Satellite Systems to Time Warner for US$213m

1999 buys 31% stake in Astrolink (promoted as the "first global wireless broadband venture") for US$425m

1999 Liberty Media takes stake in News Corporation

1999 AT&T buys cable group MediaOne (which had absorbed the Providence Journal Co's cable operations) for US$62bn

absorbed and spun off by AT&T

1999 TCI bought by AT&T for US$54 billion, with Liberty Media combined with TCI Ventures Group (technology investment unit) under effective control by Malone

1999 Liberty Media gains control of TCI Music (renamed Liberty Digital) through share swap of minor internet businesses

2000 Liberty takes stake in Cendant

2000 Liberty sells stake in BET to Viacom for US2 billion

2000 Liberty sells 21% stake in Gemstar-TV Guide International to News, increasing News' holding to 43%

2000 Liberty and Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures take US$190m stake in priceline.com

2000 Liberty buys Video Services Corporation for US$125m

2000 buys 9% stake in IDT

2000 pays US$200m for 5% of Primedia

2000 buys Ascent Entertainment Group

2000 sells Ascent's Denver Nuggets NBA team, Colorado Avalanche team and Denver Pepsi Center for US$450m

2000 Liberty takes direct stake in United Pan-Europe Communications NV, subsidiary of Amsterdam-based UnitedGlobalCom

2000 Liberty buys film processor Todd-AO, renamed Liberty Livewire

2001 Liberty Media spun off by AT&T

2001 Liberty takes US$1.4bn stake in UnitedGlobalCom/United Pan-Europe Communications cable group

2001 Liberty buys nine German regional cable networks from Deutsche Telekom for US$5bn

2001 buys Deutsche Bank's Tele Columbus and SMATcom AG cable subsidiaries for US$1bn

2001 agrees to sell its 20% of USA Networks and 27% stake in EU-based Multithematiques tv group for 3.6% of Vivendi

2001 AT&T spins off AT&T Wireless

2002 AT&T sells AT&T Broadband (ie cable tv assets) to Comcast for value US$47.5bn

2002 Liberty takes controlling stake in OpenTV, buys interest from Naspers' MIH

beyond Telemundo and Corus

2002 sells stake in Telemundo to NBC

2003 buys 8% of Japanese cable company Jupiter Telecommunications (J-Com) from Sumitomo for $142m, taking stake to 44%

2003 sells Corus Entertainment shares for US$100m

2003 buys outstanding shares of Ascent Media Group

2003 buys remaining 57% of QVC from Comcast for US$7.9bn

2004 AT&T Wireless acquired by Cingular (joint venture of RBOCs SBC and BellSouth) for US$41bn

2004 Liberty completes acquisition of controlling interest in UnitedGlobalCom

2004 increases voting stake in News to 9%, economic interest to 17%, becomes the largest shareholder in News

2004 AT&T announces that it is no longer seeking residential customers

2004 Liberty sells stake in UK cable network TeleWest for £119m

2004 increases voting stake in News to 17%

2005 AT&T agrees to US$16bn takeover by SBC Communications

2005 Liberty Media spins off 50% in cable channel group Discovery Communications to shareholders

2005 agrees to acquisition of SBS by KKR and Permira

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About Specimen Certificates

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.