shares from 1901?

Question

how do i look up these shares my grandmother gave me from 1901 she bought for a dollar. she bought 200 of them and it is crude oil from kern county i beleive. how do i find out what they are worth or should i just hold on to them.

Answer 1

Shares are legal fractional ownership of a company. Shares dating back from 1901 will be in physical share certificates. You will need to get a hold of those physical shares.

Since you don't know what you own, it sounds like you don't have physical possession of the shares. If the shares were placed at a custodian service, your grandmother will need to release those documents. If your grandmother is deceased, they are part of her legal estate and disposition can only be handled by the estate trustee.

Once you get the shares, you will see that they bear the name of company. If the company is still around and publicly traded, then you can redeem the physical shares with the company's stock registrar.

If the company was bought, then you MAY be entitled to the proceeds. If the company was bought for cash, then the proceeds have already been deposited with your grandmother. If she never received the cash, then the funds have been deposited in a trustee. In this case, it will be the State of California's state controller. The state of California has a website that has unclaimed cash from stock sales (among other things), sorted by names at:
http://www.sco.ca.gov/col/ucp/

If the shares were bought in exchange for stock, then the stock will be held at your grandmother's stock custodial agent.

If the company was never bought and is not still around, then you are most likely out of luck and the shares are only worth the paper that the shares are printed on. However, if this is the case, then it can be more "valuable" than any amount of money as it is a symbolic connection to your grandmother.

The last thing to note is that it is unlikely that the shares are for "crude oil in Kern County". Commodity backed securities were extremely rare (except for gold and silver).

Just get a hold of the certificates first.

Later addenumdum: It is not Kern County Oil & Refining as that company started in 1934. It could be one of many small oil companies that was subsequently bought by another larger company like Chevron.

Answer 2

There is still a Kern oil and Refining around. You can find them at kernoil.com There's some contact information there.
Old oil stock in companies that still exist can be worth considerable money.
Go to http://www.paperchaseintl.com/ to research your stock. You might be very surprised.

Answer 3

frind out what oil company is working the field. find out the countie's contact info.