I was first introduced to the concept of stock and bond certificates sitting in a conference room at a Hong Kong investment bank. There, I came across a collection of original certificates that immediately caught my eye. In our era of hyper-efficient electronic trading and stringent rules and regulations, these certificates offered a window into a bygone era when trading floors roared to the tunes of Gabriel and Sinatra. The pieces would often lead to interesting discussions with clients, and aside from acting as an excellent conversation starter, they looked great and added a ton of ambiance to the room.

It wasn’t until I wanted to gift one of these certificates to a friend, realizing just how scarce and prohibitively expensive the originals had become, that the idea for Market Memoir began to take form. The biggest challenge would be tracking down the right ones since most had already been scooped up by collectors. Over the next year, we attended more than 15 auctions around the world to secure our first collection of captivating and historically significant certificates, with the oldest dating back to the 16th century, when it was issued by the Dutch East India Company—the world’s first public company.

From the start, we knew we wanted to create a product that captured all the intricate details of the original certificates and invoked the same strong feeling of nostalgia. Armed with our banking and consulting experience, we visited every corner of the printing and framing world in search of the highest quality materials and spared no effort to create the best framed product on the market. Reproduced by leading reproduction experts, printed on custom fine art paper specially developed to match the texture of the original certificate paper, and framed by hand—the result is a museum-grade product guaranteed to last for more than 50 years. Welcome to Market Memoir.

Frederik Oliver
Founder