Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway - Virginia 1925

Beautifully engraved Specimen certificate from the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway printed in 1925. This historic document was printed by Hamilton Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of a train leaving the station. This historic item is over 80 years old.






Certificate Vignette

The Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway was envisioned in the early nineteenth century as a transportation and commercial route from the Ohio Valley to Charleston, South Carolina, but the Appalachian mountain barrier made its completion a formidable task. General John Thomas Wilder organized interested capitalists and formed the Charleston, Cincinnati, and Chicago Railroad Company on September 30, 1886. It was incorporated by the state of Tennessee March 29, 1887. After completing track from Marion to Kingville, North Carolina and from Johnson City to Chestoa, Tennessee, the company suspended operations.

In 1894, Charles Hellier organized the Ohio River and Charleston Railway Company, which George L. Carter and associates purchased in July 1902, reorganizing it as the South and Western Railroad. Under Carter's direction, the railroad extended rapidly. In 1905, John B. Dennis and his associates, James A. Blair and Thomas Ryan, took over operation of the railroad as the Clinchfield. By 1908, when the company became the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway (CC∨), the rail line stretched from Dante, Virginia to Spartanburg, South Carolina. General offices were in Johnson City, Tennessee. CC∨ then leased in July 1915, Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway of South Carolina (chartered in 1909) and Clinchfield Northern of Kentucky (incorporated in October, 1911). The Black Mountain Railroad was leased in April 1916.

In 1923, CC∨ stockholders approved its 99-year lease to Louisville and Nashville Railroad and Atlantic Coastline, whose officers wanted another outlet from the Virginia and Kentucky coalfields. After an Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) hearing, the lease was authorized, and in 1926, the Clinchfield Railroad was formed from the three companies to operate the leased properties. In 1962, Clinchfield Railroad completed the Spartanburg, South Carolina tunnel, an engineering feat designed by J. M. Salmon, Jr. The tunnel joins Clinchfield with the Atlantic Coastline and the Piedmont and Northern Railroads, completing the originally envisioned rail route from the Ohio Valley over the mountains to the Atlantic seaboard.

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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.