The World’s Oldest Share of Stock Discovered

Ruben Schalk, a Utrecht University graduate student doing research for his Master’s degree in the Westfries Archive in the Netherlands, recently uncovered the world’s oldest known stock certificate.

Dated September 9, 1606, the shares were issued to Pieter Hermansz by the Dutch East India Company, the first company in the world to be financed by freely negotiable shares. According to experts, this new-found document is doubly special, because it also contains detailed descriptions of more than 40 years of dividend distributions.

The second oldest stock certificate was issued by the Dutch East India Company just 18 days later, on September 27, 1606.

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