Not that investment partnerships are anything new. Most of them originated during the 1970's and 1980's, a time when new investment tax shelters proliferated. Not unexpectedly, many of the new entities turned out to be bogus; authorities are trying to chase down the operators responsible for some of them to this day.

On the other hand, a great number of the partnerships were entirely legitimate concerns that invested in everything from real estate and oil & gas ventures to cable TV systems and research & development. The entities were not meant to have an indefinite life span, and so new partners invested with the expectation of staying put until the investment property was sold and the partnership dissolved. Hence, there was no secondary market for partnership units at all in the beginning.

Inevitably, however, some of the investment properties were not sold in the originally anticipated time frame, and partners became disenchanted and impatient to sell. Smelling the blood of the innocents, along came clever bargain hunters who offered fire sale prices for unwanted units.

Luckier partners found others who were less predatory. Some organizations arranged auctions or other informal trading mechanisms for limited partners trying to get their money out. At least half a dozen businesses sprang to life in the late 1980's just to handle this particular type of trading activity. And until 1997, that was the status quo. Then, the OTC Bulletin Board and the Pink SheetsÆ picked up the investment partnerships for inclusion in their listings, and the need for partnership specialty houses was greatly diminished if not eradicated entirely.

We believe that, as with any other portion of the unlisted marketplace, there are good values to be had among the total population of investment partnerships, and so we include a number of them of them in the current edition of Walker's Manual of Unlisted Stocks. As always, caution and thorough investigation of each partnership that you may be interested in is strongly advised.