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Facebook is making stock certificates available to investors who request them. Here is what the company says its certificate may look like .
Note that Mark Zuckerberg's signature lists him as President, a title we haven't seen before at the company. Facebook tells our Julia Boorstin that Zuckerberg’s title do, in fact, include President, along with Chairman and CEO.
"It's a fairly plain certificate," says Bob Kerstein, CEO of Scripophily.com , which trades stock certificates. "There's a lot of interest in it because of the notoriety of Facebook and the fact that it has Mark Zuckerberg's name on it."
Kerstein says a lot of companies no longer offer stock certificates — Apple, Microsoft, GM,Cisco. That can make the remaining pieces of paper more valuable. For example, among the Apple stock certificates Kerstein has bought is one from the IPO. Shares back then, adjusted for splits, were $2.75. He just sold the certificate for $1,300, more than twice what the stock is currently trading at.
How can he buy and sell stock certificates when they represent active securities? Does he need a broker’s license? No. The SEC has issued a "no action" letter which allows Kerstein and others to do this under certain conditions:
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