A Share of the Mountain
What is called the oldest surviving share certificate in the world is a single sheet dated 16 June 1288. Its contents, though, are not the founding of a company. The Bishop of Västerås received an eighth of a copper mine from his nephew in exchange for two manors — a barter of a stake against real estate. It was not written in order to create a company, and yet posterity would call it the world's oldest share certificate. Recognition as an organisation came fifty-nine years later, with the charter of 1347. The company of that mountain changed shape and survived; today it is the paper maker Stora Enso. Note that «the world's oldest» rests on company tradition and the view of some observers — TIME magazine was already writing in 1963 that 1288 is merely the first documentary record and that nobody knows the actual founding year.