Gold question for the braintrust

[futuresoptions]

Been made aware this evening that my sister has some gold certificates/bonds that my father invested in through Merrill Lynch in the early seventies. He passed in the late 70's and even though I was in the will these were never brought to my attention. She says now is a good time to cash them in due to the the price of gold. Anyone have a clue to what these could be or what they may be worth? I haven't seen them or I would have a better clue of what they are. I have never heard of this type of investment.

[krystar]

get the certificates in hand and hold on gold.



probably worth couple 100x what he originally bought for.

[Aggie93]

Is there any verbiage on the certificates? Look to see if they convert to something, how valued, when exercisable / maturity.

[Joeaksa]

Hope he bought a lot...

[futuresoptions]

Okay, finally spoke with my sister about these and should get a chance to look at them this evening. From what I understand my father purchased well over a hundred shares of stock in a certain Canadian gold mining company sometime around 1970. I have done a little research and this company merged with 2 or 3 other companies in the early eighties, another merger I believe in the 90's and now is part of a company called Barrick. Does anyone know of a site where I can check for splits/accumulative dividends etc...?

[madmmac]

Looks like 1 split in 1993 for ABX.

Barrick Gold Corporation (USA): NYSE:ABX quotes & news - Google Finance

[Aggie93]

Barrick Gold is one of the largest, maybe the largest gold mining company. Ticker symbol is ABX. It might be difficult to get info that far back just using the regular internet sites. I work in the financial world and have access to Bloomberg, which is probably the best database of financial info.

It shows acquisition details going back to 1994. If you have the name on the cert i can try to search it and see who acquired it.

Is has split info for Barrick back to 1985:
1985: 1 for 5 (reverse)
1987: 2 for 1
1989: 2 for 1
1993: 2 for 1

Dividends have been paid consistently since 1987.

For a point of reference Barrick was trading split adjusted for $0.55 in 1985, closed today at $43.80.

Good luck. Feel free to hit me on PM if you want to take offline.

[TheMentat]

I think you will need the details of the mergers / buyouts to find out how many shares of ABX you would have received (these things rarely exchange 1:1)

[futuresoptions]

Thanks for the help guys, I don't think that I am sitting on a gold mine here (no pun intended) I am just looking at the amount of shares, dividends accrued over 40yrs... any splits etc... would be icing on the cake.

[futuresoptions]

PM sent Aggie93

[Neilk]

Google "found money" for your father's state and see if ML tried to report the lost money. For example, in Texas, you could search here. Found $36 for my step-dad!