Honestly? When I first heard about Old Glory Bank going public, I nearly spat out my lukewarm coffee. Another \”patriotic\” financial thing? Seemed like just noise in the endless stream of fintech buzz. But the name kept popping up, muttered by a guy at the hardware store checkout, mentioned offhand in a Reddit thread buried under crypto nonsense… curiosity, that annoying little itch, got me. Can you actually buy stock in this thing? Like, regular folks? Not just some private club for good ol\’ boys with boots and big belt buckles? So, like any modern idiot with Wi-Fi, I dove down the rabbit hole. Brace yourself, it\’s… a trip.
Turns out, yeah, technically, you can buy shares. But \”buying stock\” in Old Glory Bank isn\’t like clicking a button for Apple on your Fidelity app. Nope. It’s this whole other beast called a \”Regulation A+\” offering. Sounds fancy, right? Basically means they\’re raising capital directly from the public, us plebs, without a full-blown traditional IPO. They filed this thing called an \”Offering Circular\” with the SEC. I tried reading it. God, it was drier than the dust bowl. Page after page of legalese, risk factors that could give you night sweats (\”We have a limited operating history…\” no kidding!), and financial projections that felt… optimistic, let\’s say. Took me three attempts and two strong coffees just to grasp the basics. Felt like deciphering hieroglyphics after a sleepless night.
Here’s the kicker, the part that really made me sigh and rub my temples: you don\’t buy it through Charles Schwab or Vanguard. Not directly, anyway. You gotta go through their own designated platform. It felt… off. Sketchy, almost? Like buying concert tickets from some reseller site you’ve never heard of. You register on their investor portal – which, credit where it\’s due, wasn\’t horrible to navigate, just clunky. Filled out forms online, uploaded ID (always feels vaguely invasive, doesn\’t it?), answered questions proving I wasn\’t a complete financial moron (debatable), and waited for approval. Took a couple of days. Felt weirdly personal, like applying for membership somewhere exclusive, except instead of a velvet rope, it\’s just more paperwork.
Then came the money part. Minimum investment? Ten shares at $10 a pop. So, a hundred bucks. Not exactly gatekeeping the 1%, which is… refreshing, I guess? But then you see the fee structure. A processing fee. Per transaction. Not huge, but noticeable, like a mosquito bite on your investment right out of the gate. And the shares? They’re technically Class A Common Stock. But here’s the rub that made me pause, genuinely pause, staring blankly at my monitor: they trade on the OTC Markets, under \”OTCB\”. The pink sheets. Oof. That’s the wild west, man. Not the NYSE, not even the Nasdaq. The land of penny stocks and companies you’ve never heard of. Liquidity? Hah. Good luck finding a buyer instantly if you suddenly need cash for, I dunno, a busted water heater. The spread between buying and selling could be brutal. Felt less like investing and more like… gambling with extra steps and paperwork. My inner pragmatist started screaming.
Why am I even bothering with this? That’s the question I asked myself at 11 PM, bleary-eyed. Honestly? Part morbid fascination. A bank leaning hard into \”American values,\” whatever the hell that even means concretely in banking terms these days. Their whole schtick – serving first responders, military, small businesses – it sounds good. Noble, even. But is it a viable bank, let alone a good investment? Or just a really well-marketed idea? I know a guy, Dave, runs a small engine repair shop. Switched his business account to Old Glory. Loves the \”no nonsense\” vibe, hates the big banks. But loving your bank as a customer is very different from betting your retirement savings on its stock performance. Dave’s enthusiasm doesn\’t pay my hypothetical dividends.
And the risks… man, the Offering Circular lists them like a horror movie trailer. New bank. Tiny compared to the JPMorgans of the world. Heavily reliant on this specific niche appeal. What if that niche dries up? What if the whole \”patriotic banking\” thing becomes passé, or worse, toxic? Regulatory hurdles? Wyoming’s their home base – different rules, different oversight. It’s a lot of unknowns. Feels fragile. Like building a sandcastle right where the tide’s coming in. My broker friend, Sarah, just snorted when I mentioned OTCB. \”Liquidity nightmare,\” she said, swirling her ridiculously overpriced bourbon. \”And valuation? Based on what, exactly? Vibes?\” She’s cynical, sure, but rarely wrong about the mechanics. Makes you think. Or it should.
So, did I buy any? Sigh. Yeah. I did. A token amount. The absolute minimum. Why? Honestly? Part experiment. Part wanting skin in the game to actually care enough to follow it closely, not just forget about it. A hundred bucks plus fees… that’s a decent dinner out with my partner, wasted if it goes to zero. But it feels like buying a lottery ticket based on a gut feeling about the numbers, mixed with a weird sense of… rooting for the underdog? Maybe just proving I could navigate their damn portal. It sits there in my portfolio, a tiny, weird little blip next to the boring index funds. I check it sometimes. The price barely moves. It’s like watching paint dry, but paint you have a strange, slightly anxious attachment to. It feels less like an investment and more like a very small, very speculative bet on a story I’m not entirely sure I believe in yet. Exhausting, really.
Would I tell my mom to buy it? Absolutely not. My slightly reckless cousin who trades meme stocks? Maybe, with a strong \”don\’t blame me when it tanks\” disclaimer. It’s niche. It’s risky. It’s illiquid. It requires jumping through hoops the big brokers don’t make you jump through. It’s more effort than buying blue-chips. Is that effort worth it? For diversification into a tiny, thematic, high-risk corner? Maybe, for a sliver of a portfolio. For easy money? Nope. Not even close. It feels like supporting a local business you hope makes it, knowing full well most don’t. There’s a weird emotional weight to that, a fatigue that pure numbers don’t capture. I bought the shares, but I’m still not sure I bought into the whole thing. The jury’s out. Way out. Probably sleeping in. I just keep staring at that OTCB ticker, wondering if it’s the start of something or just a footnote.
English