Red Bell Brew

Once stock and bond certificates were considered wallpaper after companies had gone bankrupt or out of business. Today they offer financial history to collectors in the hobby with some nice pictures on the certificate. Many are from all kinds of companies that could make a great collectable gift for birthdays or holidays for that stockbroker or stock market investor.

You used to be able to take a tour visit of the RED BELL brewery in Historic Brewery Town of Philadelphia. The historic brewerytown was located around the corner from the Philadelphia Zoo. Dale Van Wieren of Keystone Tap wrote about RED BELL:

"Strangely you can still hear the horses hooves on pavement, an active inner city stable being located in what could have been some brewery's home for draft horses. And perhaps even more bizarre, after a 60 year lull, the aroma of brewing can once again be detected in the neighborhood. It isn't the ghosts of brewers past conjuring up beer in historic F.A. Poth Brewery at 31st and Jefferson Streets. The new sign on top of the building proclaims that "RED BELL Company Welcomes You to Historic Brewerytown.""

O'Well the ghosts are back because the Brewery is no longer there because they ran into financial troubles.

Red Bell Brewing Co.’s securities registration has been revoked by the SEC following repeated failure to file required annual and quarterly reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Thus the company violated a crucial provision of the federal securities laws that requires public corporations to publicly disclose current, accurate financial information so that investors may make informed decisions. The revocations were ordered in an administrative proceeding before an administrative law judge.

Red Bell Stock Certificates are worthless shares of stock, but are a collectible piece of financial history.

keywords: Breweries, Organizational history, Malt beverages, Securities issued, listed, Beer and ale, Beer & Ale in Bulk, Beer, Red Bell Brewing Company

About Collecting: Old, canceled, "worthless" stock you find in Grandpa's attic might not be so worthless after all. Serious attention didn't begin to be paid to this subject until around 1976, following the publication of two carefully researched catalogs in Germany listing and illustrating the bonds issued in pre-revolutionary China and Russia, which were followed in 1978 by the issuing of monthly price lists by stamp dealer Stanley Gibbons, who also started to hold a series of public auctions. By 1980, Sotheby's, Christies and other London auction houses hopped on the bandwagon, achieving very successful results, as did the New York house of R.M. Smythe, holding the first ever U.S. auction devoted solely to vintage bonds and stocks. Today, some 30,000 collectors worldwide are active in this rapidly exploding field. An auction record was set this year when a Massachusetts collector paid $36,300 at a Smythe auction for the oldest known surviving stock certificate, dated June 7, 1783. Several elements go into the appreciation of these documents -- primarily the historic and the aesthetic. Many of the older examples were printed in several colors and featured fine engraving embellished with ornate, beautifully executed decorative devices and, treated as rare, numbered, limited editions, they are now often framed and hung on the walls of offices. Printed via methods similar to the way in which currency is produced, they boast sharp detail attained through the use of fine, continuous lines. Many collectors focus their attention on one particular industry. One of these is gold and silver mining stock certificates, superior examples of which, especially those relating to the California Gold Rush of 1849, are in great demand, as well as diamond and coal mines. The other two members of the top three are the building of American railways, beginning in 1830, and automobile companies. Among the secondary fields are electricity, water, oil, tobacco, textiles, coffee and tea, to name just a few.
Other collectors focus on a specific period of time or historic area, such as pre-1800, or Confederate bonds and other American Civil War material, or on particular governments like imperial China or czarist Russia.
Another segment of the scripophily community is more focused on design elements -- say in the art nouveau or art deco style. There are also a number of well-known printers whose productions are sought after, among them the British Waterlow & Sons, and Bradbury Wilkinson and De La Rue,and the American Bank Note Company in this country, the latter of which incorporated several other companies starting in 1858. Each firm employed a number of specialist engravers -- some, for example, concentrated on portraits (the most demanding), others on vignettes depicting, landscapes, buildings, trains, etc., while still others were responsible for the elegant lettering found on these certificates. Since so many historically important industrialists signed the documents of their companies, these autographs become yet another prime factor in collecting scripophily. John D. Rockefeller, who started the Standard Oil Company of Ohio in 1862 (for an initial investment of $4,000) is a choice example. Others include Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, one of the great railroad magnates, Henry Wells and William Fargo, J.P. Morgan, Thomas Edison, and various members of the Rothschild family, as well as notables from other areas, such as P. T. Barnum, Johann Strauss and Johann von Goethe.