State of New Mexico $5000 Severance Tax Bond - Bruce King as Governor - New Mexico 1980

Beautifully engraved SPECIMEN certificate from the State of New Mexico New Mexico issued in 1980. This historic document was printed by the Northern Banknote Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of an eagle. This item has the printed signatures of the State Governor, Bruce King. 9 coupons attached on top.


Certificate

Bruce King (April 6, 1924 – November 13, 2009) was an American businessman and politician. He served three terms as the governor of the state of New Mexico. He was a member of the Democratic Party. King was the longest-serving Governor in New Mexico history with 12 years of service.

Severance Tax is a tax imposed on the removal of nonrenewable resources such as crude oil, condensate and natural gas, coalbed methane and carbon dioxide. Severance tax is charged to producers, or anyone with a working or royalty interest, in oil or gas operations in the imposing states.

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About Specimens

Specimen Certificates are actual certificates that have never been issued. They were usually kept by the printers in their permanent archives as their only example of a particular certificate. Sometimes you will see a hand stamp on the certificate that says "Do not remove from file".

Specimens were also used to show prospective clients different types of certificate designs that were available. Specimen certificates are usually much scarcer than issued certificates. In fact, many times they are the only way to get a certificate for a particular company because the issued certificates were redeemed and destroyed. In a few instances, Specimen certificates we made for a company but were never used because a different design was chosen by the company.

These certificates are normally stamped "Specimen" or they have small holes spelling the word specimen. Most of the time they don't have a serial number, or they have a serial number of 00000.