Scripophily Problem

from a friend

[graywolf]

scripophily - The collecting of old securities certificates. Certificates are often valuable as collectors' items apart from any redemption value they may have.

The following situation is purely hypothetical and any similiarity to any persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

I have this friend and he's into scripophily. Working on the internet he thought it would be cool to have some stock certificates from dot-com companies, yahoo, ebay, microsoft, etc. So before AOL changed to Time Warner he got a physical stock certificate. He thought it would become rare as a collectible and have some value. So after they changed the name he got a letter asking him to redeem/send back the share. He ignored it. He got a few more, and ignored them. He could just fill out the form saying he lost it but it would cost him $20. The letters he is getting in the mail have started to become ... aggressive. Can they actually do any thing to my hypothetical friend?

[mivox]

I'd just pay the $20 to save myself the hassle. If I were the friend in question, of course.

[mattglet]

A lawyer might be able to answer that question a little better. The only thing I can think of is that the certificate is property of the company (maybe?), therefore they have every reason to ask for it back.

Interesting hypothetical question though.