Beautifully engraved RARE SPECIMEN certificate from the
Baldwin Locomotive Works. This historic document was printed by the American Banknote Company in 1916 and has an
ornate border around it with a vignette of a train. This item has the printed signatures of the Company’s President and Treasurer.
Certificate Vignette
The Baldwin Locomotive Works, at Philadelphia, had a humble beginning. Matthias W. Baldwin, the founder, was a jeweler and silversmith, who, in 1825, formed a partnership with a machinist, and engaged in the manufacture of bookbinders' tools and cylinders for calico printing. Mr. Baldwin then designed and constructed for his own use a small stationary engine, the workmanship of which was so excellent and its efficiency so great that he was solicited to build others like it for various parties, and thus led to turn his attention to steam engineering. In 1831 he built a miniature locomotive, for exhibition, which was so much of a success that he that year received an order from a railway company for a locomotive to run on a short line to the suburbs of Philadelphia. The difficulties attending the execution of this first order were such as our mechanics now cannot easily comprehend. Tools were not easily obtainable; the cylinders were bored by a chisel fixed in a block of wood and turned by hand; the workmen had to be taught how to do nearly all the work; and Mr. Baldwin himself did a great deal of it with his own hands. It was under such circumstances that his first locomotive, christened Old Ironsides, was completed and tried on the road, November 23, 1832. It was at once put in active service, and did duty for over a score of years. It was a four-wheeled engine, weighing a little over five tons; the driving wheels were 54 inches in diameter, and the cylinders 9˝ inches in diameter by 18 inches stroke. The wheels were of heavy cast iron hubs, with wooden spokes and rims, and wrought iron tires, and the frame was of wood placed outside the wheels.
About SpecimensSpecimen 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.