Beautifully engraved RARE SPECIMEN $10,000 Gold Bond certificate from the
Central Pacific Railway dated 1899. This historic document was printed by the American Banknote Company and has an
ornate border around it with a vignette of a Portrait of Collis P. Huntington. This is the first time we have had this certificate for sale.
Certificate Vignette
The Central Pacific was chartered by Congress to construct a portion of the first transcontinental line, starting in Sacramento and proceeding eastward. Much of the construction work, especially the dangerous assignments, was accomplished by Chinese immigrants. The line crossed the Sierra Nevada mountains into Nevada, followed the Humboldt River and linked with the competing Union Pacific Railroad near Ogden, Utah on May 10, 1869.
The Central Pacific was the project of two of the great railroad barons of the day, Leland Stanford and Collis P. Huntington. While the Central Pacific lost out in the race to construct the most mileage, it was an immediate financial success; lands received in government grants were sold to ready buyers, which provided sufficient income to cover construction costs.
About Specimen CertificatesSpecimen 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.