RE:RE:RE:This Just InWhen I was 16 I entered a stock picking contest for high school students run by Wilfred Laurier university. My great grandmother thought I knew what I was doing so she sent me a pile of stock certificates. 100,000 of this , 50,000 of that. There were nearly 30 stock certificates that my great grandfather kept in his desk drawer. 90% were penny mining stocks. Nobody knew he even had them until he passed and someone cleaned out all his papers. Back then, it was common to have a physical share certificate. There was no internet and I didn't know any stock brokers so off to the library I went. I found a book / periodical published by the financial post called Predecessor and Defunct Companies. 5 or 6 were listed as predecessors that became a newly named company. The rest were defunct/bankrupt/unlisted ....ie worthless. But my hopes were high that one of those other ones became a huge winner. But alas, all of them were worthless. By my estimation, the old guy had invested over $200,000 into worthless companies. That was a lot of money back then. My parents bought their first house in the 70s for $26,000. I , of course, didn't tell my sweet little ole great gramma what he lost, only that they were currently worthless and likely always would be. So your friend was very lucky. Like lottery ticket lucky. Which brings me to one of my favourite sayings that I think I started back in the day. "I'd rather be Lucky than Smart".