(FORTUNE Magazine) – Think playing today's stock market is tough? Try playing yesterday's. Sanford Mock, a senior VP for investments at Paine Webber, has collected more than 800 antique stock and bond certificates. He frames his favorites and hangs them on the walls and along the stairway of his Beverly Hills home. Among them: railroad bonds from the Ottoman Empire; Confederate debentures from the Civil War (redeemable in cotton); 1895 share certificates from the Standard Oil Trust, signed by John D. Rockefeller; and paper from the Massachusetts Bay Colony entitling the bearer to five bushels of corn, 68 4/7 pounds of beef, ten pounds of sheep's wool, and 16 pounds of leather -- or their cash equivalent. Mock buys most of his pieces from dealers or at auctions. Mock (''I'm of Social Security age'') has yet to redeem any of his holdings, which could be worth over $1 million -- but only as antiques. Their value as financial instruments is much less, largely because much of the assorted paper has long been canceled. He once wrote to the city of Paris after learning that a 1929 1,000 franc muni bond might be worth something. Officials said it was -- about $3.50. But they suggested he not bother to try and collect. So he didn't. Autographed items like the Standard Oil notes could fetch up to $15,000. Measuring worth another way, Mock prizes the colonial issues above the rest. Says he: ''It's all part of the miracle of how America was able to launch itself.''