Stock Certificate In two names
The DOW is just an index, which is simply a group of stocks meeting the criteria for inclusion. In the case of the DOW, it's the 30 US stocks with the largest market capitalization, but other indices include many lesser stocks (such as the S&P500 or the Russell 2000). The fact that Holobeam is no longer a constituent of the DOW30 probably shouldn't be taken in and of itself as a signal to sell the stock. As far as I can tell, HOOB stock is still trading on the Nasdaq exchange. However, it is extremely ill-liquid, which means that there are very few people willing to buy or sell it. Whether or not this would work to your advantage is almost entirely down to luck - it depends whether there is a keen buyer out there at the time you try to sell. I'd call it pretty worrisome.  HOOB is trading over the counter, in fact, on the pink sheets, so it has been delisted from the major exchanges.  It appears that it lacks recent financial disclosures.  You'll have to investigate to see if you think it's worth keeping, but trading is thin. "The common way to frame the ""should I sell"" question is ask yourself ""would you buy it today at the current price"".  If you wouldn't,  sell it. Is sounds like this may be a paper certificate.  You will have to research how to present the certificate to a broker to trade it, or if the company has a direct shareholder program.  I have periodically been offered to sell ""odd lots"" to shareholder programs which, if one exists, may be less hassle than other options.  As a part of this, your mother's estate administrator should decide if the estate is selling it's interest, or giving it's interest to heirs before the sale."
Okay, I went through a similar situation when my mother died in March of this year. The estate still needs to go into probate. Especially if there was a will. And when you do this, your husband will be named as the executor. Then what he will need to do is produce both of their death certificates to the bank, have the account closed, and open an estate account with both of their names on it. Their debts & anything like this should be paid from this account as well. Then what you can do is endorse the check as the executor and deposit it into this account. After all debts are paid, the money can be disbursed to the beneficiaries (your husband). Basically, as long as they didn't have any huge debts to pay, he will see the money again. It just may be a couple of months. And you will have to pay some filing fees. All securities must be registered with the SEC. Securities are defined as (1) The term “security” means any note, stock, treasury stock,   security future, security-based swap, bond, debenture, evidence of   indebtedness, certificate of interest or participation in any   profit-sharing agreement, collateral-trust certificate,   preorganization certificate or subscription, transferable share,   investment contract, voting-trust certificate, certificate of deposit   for a security, fractional undivided interest in oil, gas, or other   mineral rights, any put, call, straddle, option, or privilege on any   security, certificate of deposit, or group or index of securities   (including any interest therein or based on the value thereof), or any   put, call, straddle, option, or privilege entered into on a national   securities exchange relating to foreign currency, or, in general, any   interest or instrument commonly known as a “security”, or any   certificate of interest or participation in, temporary or interim   certificate for, receipt for, guarantee of, or warrant or right to   subscribe to or purchase, any of the foregoing. thus currencies are not defined as securities. While OTC transactions of securities is not outright forbidden, there are numerous regulations issued by the SEC as a result of the 1943 Exchange Act and others that make this difficult and/or costly. Many other securities are exempted from registration thus trade in a way that could be called OTC. Different countries have variances upon US law but are very similar. Any security could be traded OTC, but law prohibits it expressly or in such a way to make it relatively expensive; further, stock options are so tightly regulated that expiration dates, expiration intervals, strike intervals, and minimum ticks are all set by the authorities. Answers here are correct but I'll offer an extremely (overly) simple explanation that should help you in understanding the more detailed answers.  When most people own stock they do so through a broker.  Unless you jump through some hoops, the broker keeps the shares in the name of the brokerage.  This is called holding the stock in street name. When you sell short through a brokerage, the broker is letting you borrow a certain number of shares owned by someone else and sell them for cash now.  At some point, you need to repay this loan with the same number of shares you borrowed.  Ideally, you want the stock to drop to $0.  The reason you might be forced to purchase the stock is that the actual owner(s) of the stock want to sell.  If the broker has too many people wanting to sell, you will need to repay some of all of the loan (in shares) i.e. purchasing shares at the current market price. "which means the current total is $548,100. Is that correct? Yep Unfortunately the ""current"" GM stock is different than the GM stock of 1989.  GM went bankrupt in 2011.  It's original stock changed to Motors Liquidation Company (MTLQQ) and is essentially worthless today.  There was no conversion from the old stock to the new stock. What do I do with these certificates? Can I bring them to my bank, or do I need to open an account with a stock company like Fidelity? See here for some instructions on cashing them in (or at least registering them electronically).  I've never dealt with physical stocks, but I presume that a broker is going to charge you something for registering them vs. direct registration, though I have no idea how much that would be. I read somewhere that I only have to pay taxes when I cash out these stocks. But are these rules any different because I inherited the stocks? You will pay capital gains tax on the increase in value from the time your father died to the time you sell the shares.  If that time is more than one year (and the stock has gone up in value) you will pay a 15% tax on the total increase.  If you have held them less than one year, they will be short-term capital gains which will count as regular income, and you will pay whatever your marginal tax rate is. If you sell the stock at a loss, then you'll be able to deduct some or all of that loss from your income, and may be able to carry forward losses for a few years as well. I did not catch that the stock you mention was GM stock.  GM went bankrupt in 2011, so it's likely that the stock you own is worthless.  I have edited the first answer appropriately but left the other two since they apply more generally.  In your case the best you get is a tax deduction for the loss in value from the date your father died." Generally, when I run across this kind of situation, I look for the Investor Relations section of the corporate website for a 'Stock Information' (or similar) tab or link.   This usually contains information explaining the different shares classes, how they relate (if at all), voting and/or dividend rights, and taxation differences for the different classes. However, I have trouble finding such a page on a central BYD corporate investor relations page.   I did find this page detailing the HK1211 shares: http://www.byd.com/investor/base_information.html.  I don't know what or why, but something tells me this is an older page. Searching on, I also found this page which looks newer and clarifies that the difference you are seeing is between 'A' and 'H' shares. http://www.byd.cn/BYDEnglish/basic/article.jsp?articleId=1524676.  (I'm guessing but I'd think somewhere in the announcements on this byd.cn site, you may find more details of any structural differences between share classes -- I just didn't want to page through them all.) The check is written to BigCo. Jack is being diluted, corporation issues more shares. There's no gain, no change in Jack's equity value. Jack didn't lose or win anything. BigCo was worth $1M before the additional money, it is worth $1.25M after the additional money, with Jack owning the same $1M, but the cake is now bigger (obviously the numbers are wrong in your example, but you get the point). How can they reduce the number of shares I hold? They may have purchased them.  You don't say what stock it is, so we can only speculate.  Let's say that the stock is called PENNY.  So they may have taken your 1600 PENNY shares and renamed them to 1600 PENNYOLD shares.  Then they created a new $5 PENNY share and gave you .2357 shares of that in exchange for your 1600 PENNYOLD shares.  This suggests that your old shares were worth $1.1785 or less than a tenth of a cent each.   As an example, MYLAN did this in 2015 as part of their tax inversion (moved official headquarters from the US to Europe).  They did not change the number of shares at that time, but MYLAN is not a penny stock.   This is the kind of thing that might happen in a bankruptcy.   A reverse split (where they give you one share in exchange for more than one share) is also possible, although you received an odd amount for a reverse split.  Usually those produce rounder numbers.  A number like .2357 sounds more like a market price, as those can be bizarre. On NASDAQ the ^ is used to denote other securities and / to denote warrents for the underlying company. Yahoo maybe using some other designators for same.