Oct. 1--The truth is, Lance Lee just didn't get it when clients would ask him if he could help them buy one share of stock in some big company -- and could he see to it that they received a paper stock certificate as proof of ownership?

One share? Paper stock certificate? What? You churn your own butter, too?

"As an investment it doesn't make any sense," says Lee, who was a bond broker working side-by-side with stock brokers when he first heard the requests in the 1990s. He couldn't figure out why these folks didn't buy stock the way everyone else did, through a brokerage that tracks your position electronically.

Face it: Hardly anybody deals with paper certificates any more. Some companies simply don't issue them, even if you offer to pay the extra fees required to secure them.

But it turns out Lee, 42, was dealing with the ultimate buy-and-hold investor. These were people who wanted to buy one share to give to loved ones as a gift or to frame and hang on the wall as a keepsake.

"They're buying a stock that they're never planning on selling," Lee says.

He'd get requests for a Disney share for somebody's grandchild or a Harley-Davidson stock certificate for a Harley-riding hubby or a Tiffany share for the girlfriend of a boyfriend, who was bound to soon be an ex. (Buy the ring, Romeo, not the stock.)

Lee quickly realized how complicated it is to buy a share in paper form. You need a brokerage account. Your

broker needs to contact the company or its agent to ask for the certificate. The share has to be registered in the ultimate owner's name. It has to be mailed to the buyer and the buyer needs to pay the brokerage $75 or so for the firm's trouble.

Lee thought he might turn the unusual requests into a business.

He started fulfilling single-share orders on a part-time basis. Then in 1999, Lee launched San Francisco-based OneShare in a serious way. The now 12-employee company is an online store selling framed stock certificates representing one share. Because OneShare specializes in the unusual certificate transactions, it's able to shave the processing fee to $39. Fancy frames and engraving are extra.

And as Lee built the business, he became a true believer.

Sitting in the conference room of OneShare's China Basin headquarters, Lee spreads out part of his personal collection of active and defunct stock certificates.

"That's what I love about certificates," he says.