Iowa-Nebraska Light and Power Company - Delaware

Beautifully engraved Gold Bond Specimen Certificate from the Iowa-Nebraska Light and Power Company datede 1931. This historic document was printed by Columbian Bank Note Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of an allegorical woman. This item is over 75 years old.










Certificate Vignette

Iowa-Nebraska Light and Power Company was owned by the Continental Gas and Electric Corporation, which in turn was owned by the United Light and Railways Company. The latter was owned by the United Light and Power Company, part of which was owned by Koppers Gas and Coke Company, under the Koppers Company of Delaware. However, another part of United Light and Power was owned by Lee and Company. This faction was connected with the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, which, in turn, was partially owned by the National Power and Light Company. The National Power and Light Company was owned in part by Electric Bond and Share, one of the key holding companies for all public utilities in America.

---

About Specimens

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 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 has grown in popularity over the past several years.