1997: How many Berkshire shareholders have held longer and Buffett?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Darrell Patrick (PH) from Dayton, Ohio.

How many shareholders do you have that have owned Berkshire longer than you and Charlie? And have you ever gotten together with them?

WARREN BUFFETT: How many shareholders have had it longer than we have? Well, we started buying in 1962. And it was seven and — I think the first ticket was at 7 5/8ths or thereabouts.

It was 2,000 shares. I’ve got the trading card on the wall, and I paid a dime commission. I can’t believe I was paying a dime commission in those days. We pay a nickel now, on much higher-priced stocks. (Laughter)

It’s a good thing I didn’t have a fistfight with a broker about whether to pay it or not. I might have not had those 2,000 shares.

We have as a director, Kim Chace, and his family’s holdings in Berkshire go back to, what? Kim, where are you down here? There we are. What year would you —?

MALCOLM CHACE: The ’20s.

WARREN BUFFETT: The ’20s, yeah. The Chace family has been in Berkshire since the ’20s.

But I would say — we bought about 70 percent of the — Buffett Partnership, which was a partnership I ran in the ’60s — bought about 70 percent of the company. So that means they were 300,000 shares roughly that were not owned by us.

Aside from the Chace family, I’m sure there are people that — I’m sure we’ve got, you know, 50 or 100 shareholders maybe from that earlier dates that are still around, and I’m glad they are.

Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Nothing to add.