Webvan stock certificate sells for dlrs 500
PORTLAND, Oregon, Jul 31, 2001 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Webvan is trading
above a dollar.
That's right. Bidding hit dlrs 530 last Friday for a stock certificate from the
now defunct dot-com company, which Jeff Smith of Klamath Falls bought several
months ago for 14 cents.
"He's the only guy in the world to have made money on Webvan stock," laughs Greg
Freishtat, an Atlanta investor who purchased the certificate on eBay last week.
Freishtat plans to hang the memento in his office with the plaque: "Don't let
this happen to you."
And Smith, a semiretired consultant who regularly buys and sells stock
certificates on eBay, believes he's on to a new moneymaker - a fervor for
certificates from failed dot-com companies.
Stock certificates from old railroads, airlines and banks, some going back as
far as the 1800s, have long been popular among collectors. But documents from
short-lived Web companies are a contemporary commodity.
Although certificates are no longer distributed with each stock sale, buyers can
still request the documents, usually with an added fee.
Webvan, an online grocer, declared bankruptcy in mid-July. About 264 million
shares are still available on the open market; it's not clear how many Webvan
certificates are in circulation.
David Haugk, a certificate transfer officer with Bidwell & Co., said with Webvan
stock selling at 3/4-a-penny on Monday, 10,000 shares could be purchased for
about dlrs 75.
"I don't understand why people would want to pay that kind of money for a piece
of paper," he said. "This will be short lived. I just don't understand why
people would want to do this."
Nevertheless, Smith said when the Webvan certificate went on the auction block,
the Web page drew nearly 27,000 viewers and 300 e-mails from around the world. A
typical stock-certificate auction attracts between 50 and 80 people, he says.
"It caught everybody by surprise," he says. "To tell the truth, I was surprised
when 1,000 people had looked at it, and it was bid up to dlrs 67."
Certificates for other struggling companies, such as Drkoop, eToys and Pets.com,
have also gone up for auction on eBay.
Although stocks cannot be sold on eBay, it allows auction of expired
certificates or certificates from defunct companies. Under Securities and
Exchange Commission rules, stock certificates can be sold as art, as long as
prices are twice as high as their actual value.
Smith, 54, says there is a particular fascination with Webvan's sepia-tone
certificates, which feature the company's grocery-bag logo, because it is among
the first of the larger dot-com companies to go out of business.
Before placing it on eBay, Smith says he offered the certificate to a network of
collectors around the world whom he often trades with. They all turned him down.
"Now they're saying 'That was quite foolish of me,"' he says. "They didn't
realize the dot-com certificate craze had kicked in."
By AMALIE YOUNG
Associated Press Writer
Copyright 2001 Associated Press, All rights reserved
-0-
APO Priority=r
(PROFILE
(WS SL:BC-US-Webvan-Stock Auction; CT:f;
(REG:EURO;)
(REG:BRIT;)
(REG:SCAN;)
(REG:MEST;)
(REG:AFRI;)
(REG:INDI;)
(REG:ASIA;)
(REG:ENGL;)
(LANG:ENGLISH;))
)
KEYWORD: PORTLAND, Oregon
*** end of story *** |
