Date of issue : what are the different posible formats ?

In order to englobe a maximum number of cases, dates can be entered using various pro-format hereunder defined. It has to be noted that it is the European standard that has been choosen with first the day, then the month and finally the year. Dates are entered as follows (d=day, m=month, y=year) :

• d(d)/m(m)/yyyy  or  m(m)/yyyy  or  yyyy : 10/3/1968 or 03/1968
• d(d)-m(m)-yyyy  ou  m(m)-yyyy  ou  yyyy : 3-8-1970 or 03-08-1970
• yy.. : 19.. : precise year unknown but in the 1900's
• yyy. : 196. : year between1960 and 1969
• cayyyy : ca1950 : around the 50's
• yyyy? : 1970? : probable year
• syyyy : s1969 : year of the earliest stamp to be found

This information represents the year the company was first represented on the stock market by shares. For a bond issue, it is the year of the first issue. Indeed, the bonds of long term loans were usually issued with coupons for 20 years, after which a new coupon sheet was issued or a completely new bond. So for example, for the 1903 Antwerp loan, 4 different bonds exist. For all of them, the date of creation will be 1903 but the dates of issue will vary between 1903 and 1963.

Hand written : what does this mean ?

On some shares, and usually on the name certificates, the date of issue has been hand written. And so a specific share can be found with various dates, sometimes different by several years. The field 'hand written' is there to catch your attention on the fact that even if the date of your certificate is different than the one in our database, they both could be the same issue. This can be verified visually if a picture is available or by the comparing the issued capitals. Same one will most of the time signify same shares.

Total emission : what does this mean ?

Some share issues have been done using various coupures :1,2,5,10,100 even 1000 shares. For a certain total issue, it is usually not mentionned how many shares of the different types were issued. In this case, the total emssion has been entered and the field 'total emission' ticked. You can compute the maximum number of shares of a type existing by dividing the total issue by the number of shares represented by a type. For example, for a total issue of 800.000 shares, and a coupure of 1000 shares, you can only find maximum 800 of these certificates. As this information is sometimes given by some auction houses, you could also find it back for some records instead of the total issue. The total emission field will in this case not be ticked.