A good plan is to ask several different bro-hers and dealers to suggest investments for a given sum. Then compare their recommendations and take what seems the best. If more than one agrees on the same stock or bond, that is likely to be a good sign. Or ask the financial editor whom you trust the most which to buy.

If you are buying through brokers in another city, always secure funds on the city to which you are writing. Otherwise you will make your brokers a great deal of trouble and sometimes expense. Nothing is easier than to buy at your local bank a draft on the city where your broker is located, or a money order at the post-office or at an express office.

Often persons who have had but little experience in financial affairs prefer not to remit to a broker before receiving the securities, no matter how reliable he may be. This difficulty may be met by arranging the transaction through your local bank. The bank will transmit the order to its correspondent in New York, Chicago or wherever your broker is. The corresponding bank in the large city will turn the order over to a broker for execution, will arrange for the transfer of the stock into the name of the purchaser if so desired, and will deliver the certificate to you at your local bank.

In the case of coupon or bearer bonds, a firm is willing to send them with draft attached on your local bank; but it can not do so with stocks which must be transferred. No broker, of course, would use his own money to purchase stocks transferred to the name of a stranger and send it to him, unless he is in some way guaranteed against loss. The same is true of registered bonds. The moment a broker registers a bond or transfers a stock he loses all title and interest in it. Coupon bonds are those which have small detachable certificates for the collection of interest. A registered bond and transferred stock are those the names of whose owners are written in the company's books.

If you live anywhere near a safe-deposit vault or a bank that has one, rent a box at from two dollars to ten dollars a year and place your securities in it. Banks are more and more offering safe-deposit facilities, and in almost every town of five thousand inhabitants there is at least one institution where one may rent some sort of safe-deposit box. The positive statement has been made that nothing placed in a safe-deposit box has ever been lost except through the carelessness of the owner. Certainly I have never heard of any one losing money or valuables placed there. They are proof against burglars and fire alike.

If you can not obtain this very cheap form of insurance, lock up your bonds and stocks in a tin box, and make a duplicate or even triplicate list of them, including every detail, such as the number, amount, rate of interest, name of corporation and all other pertinent facts. Then keep these lists in different places - one in your office, another in your home, and a third in still another place.

There is not much danger incurred in the loss of a registered bond or one that is registered as to principal. Only through the forgery of your name can you suffer loss because of the disappearance of such a bond. But coupon bonds are almost as readily negotiable as a ten-dollar bill. The loss of a coupon bond necessitates all manner of annoyance and trouble in having a duplicate made out. On the other hand, it is much more difficult to sell a registered bond, and often the annoyance involved is great.

In the case of stock certificates be sure to have them written out in your name, and transferred on the books of the corporation in your name. If that is done it will be very difficult for anybody else to negotiate them. Do not write a word on the back of the certificate. If you lose a share of stock, notify the transfer office of the corporation at once; and also, in case of the loss of any kind of security, notify the banker from whom you purchased it.

By far the safest plan is to lock up all your securities in a safe-deposit vault, and then you will be safe in owning coupon bonds, which are far easier to sell than other kinds. Do not make the mistake that, strangely enough, is constantly being made - of cutting off the wrong coupon or of cutting off more than one at a time. Every coupon has the date plainly printed on it, and only by gross carelessness can an investor make that kind of mistake. Do not deface bonds or stocks in any way. If you are keeping them for investment, lock them up and leave them alone.