I know that holding paper stock certificates is kind of passe now, but my wife has some from decades ago. We want to liquidate the shares but I don't have the slightest ideas what to do with the dang thing. How do you sell a stock when you hold the certificate? Will Interactive Brokers take the certificate and put the shares in my wife's and my account?
I took some old stock certs to a Schwab office once. A broker there was able to check their value within minutes.
When you buy stocks, you can have them held "in street name", which in the computer age means virtual, or have share certificates issued. Share certificates at one time were very ornate and can now have collector value. There is usually no reason to have certificates issued, with the added expense and delays involved, unless you want to give them as gifts or something like that. As for selling the stock, any broker can handle the transaction. For a high tech broker like IB, the transaction would likely be a nuisance.
IB (my broker) explicitly does *not* accept stock certificates! I may have to walk this cert into a brick and mortar broker house in the city. Damn.
Just FedEx 'em after you open an account online. http://personal.fidelity.com/global/search/inquira/resultsindex.shtml?question=stock certificates