My husband inherited some New England Telephone stock from an uncle in 1961, when he was in his teens. Our first problem, therefore, is as follows:

1) He doesn't know how much stock he got.
2) He doesn't remember when his uncle died. (Feb or March--we're working on this.)
3) Everyone who knows is dead.

New England Telephone was sold to AT&T, and his stock was converted into AT&T stock. He has no clue as to how many AT&T shares he received, or what their value was. He has no certificates. (I should, perhaps, explain that he has been blind since birth, which makes it easier to mislay things.)

Now, AT&T has historical quote information posted on their website going back to 1893, including lots of stuff on the 1984 divesture, but nothing on earlier mergers and acquisitions. Also, this has split 14 ways from Sunday.

We would like to sell the AT&T stock. We asked our accountant and our discount broker how to calculate the cost basis, and they each said to ask the other fella.

How do we calculate the cost basis for this stock? I presume that AT&T probably could tell us how many shares he had back to 1984, but will that be good enough? If they can tell us how many he was issued at the NET acquisition, will that be good enough?

There has to be some way to sell this stock, pay the tax man, and not get in trouble!