Definition
A valuable security is a document or instrument that represents or embodies a legally enforceable right to money, property, or other legally cognizable value — one whose destruction, alteration, or theft causes direct legal or financial harm because the instrument itself carries or evidences the right. The term appears most commonly in criminal law, particularly in statutes defining theft, forgery, and related offenses, where the legislature must specify which categories of written instruments fall within the protected class.
The phrase is a term of art, not a general description. A document may have enormous practical importance — a business contract, a letter of instruction, a deed awaiting delivery — and still fall outside the category of "valuable security" if it does not itself embody a transferable right to money or property. Conversely, a negotiable promissory note for a modest sum qualifies, because the note is the right, not merely evidence of it.
Instruments commonly recognized as valuable securities include: promissory notes, bills of exchange, checks, bonds, share certificates, debentures, warrants, and similar negotiable or quasi-negotiable instruments. The defining characteristic is that value inheres in the instrument, not merely in whatever transaction or relationship gave rise to it.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Valuable security" does not appear as a standalone entry in general usage. The word "security" in modern common speech most often refers to safety or protection; in financial contexts, it loosely describes stocks, bonds, or investment instruments.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's treats "security" in its legal and commercial sense as a pledge, surety, or instrument given to ensure performance of an obligation — broader than the technical legal category and not limited to negotiable instruments.
The gap matters for researchers: common usage treats "security" as describing almost any financial instrument or protective arrangement. The legal category "valuable security" is considerably narrower, requiring that value attach to the instrument itself. A contract guaranteeing future payment is not ordinarily a valuable security; a promissory note evidencing that same obligation typically is.
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Common Confusion
VALUABLE SECURITY vs. VALUABLE THING vs. VALUABLE PAPERS: These three phrases appear in close proximity in criminal statutes and older digest headings and are not synonymous. Bouvier makes the distinction explicit: every valuable security is a valuable thing, but the reverse is not true. Ice, merchandise, and commodities are valuable things but not valuable securities. "Valuable papers," meanwhile, is a distinct concept — referring not to papers with monetary value but to papers an owner considers worth preserving (personal letters, family records, irreplaceable documents). A researcher who conflates these terms when reading a statute or indictment will misread the scope of the offense charged.
VALUABLE SECURITY vs. SECURITY INTEREST: In modern commercial law, "security interest" (as defined under Article 9 of the UCC) is a distinct concept — a lien or encumbrance on personal property given to secure an obligation. The two terms share a root word but occupy entirely different bodies of law. A security interest is a property right; a valuable security is an instrument. See the Contracts & Commercial Law Encyclopedia entry on Security Interest for the Article 9 framework.
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Why It Matters in Research
Statutory context is everything. "Valuable security" appears primarily in criminal codes — forgery, theft by deception, fraudulent destruction of documents — and the definition controlling any given case is the one embedded in the applicable statute, not a general common law gloss. Researchers working with pre-20th-century materials will encounter the term in English statutes (particularly the Forgery Act and its predecessors) and their American analogs, where the category was carefully constructed to extend protection beyond coined money and tangible goods to written instruments capable of being used as money substitutes.
Historical sources are useful but incomplete. Bouvier's entry gestures at the boundary between valuable securities and other valuable things but does not offer a systematic test. Researchers should not rely on dictionary definitions alone when advising on whether a specific instrument qualifies — the answer will turn on the statute in force at the relevant time and jurisdiction.
The term is less prominent in modern statutory drafting. Many contemporary criminal codes have moved toward broader language ("financial instrument," "written instrument," "negotiable instrument") that may or may not track the older category. When researching a modern offense, confirm whether the legislature retained the traditional phrase or replaced it.
Cross-corpus alert: Researchers approaching this term from a securities-law angle (the Law Mind Business Organizations & Corporate Law Encyclopedia's treatment of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Exchange Act of 1934) are working in a fundamentally different legal universe. Federal securities law defines "security" by reference to investment contracts, equity interests, and debt instruments in a capital markets context. That definition has no operative relationship to the criminal-law category of "valuable security." Do not import federal securities law definitions into criminal forgery or theft analysis, or vice versa.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary captures the essential architecture of the term: the category is a subset of valuable things, not coextensive with it. The entry draws the distinction cleanly — "every valuable security is a valuable thing, but many valuable things are not valuable securities" — and separately identifies "valuable papers" as a yet different category defined by the owner's subjective valuation rather than market value.
What Bouvier does not supply is a positive test for what makes an instrument a valuable security, beyond the illustrative example of a promissory note. The entry's reliance on case citations to draw the perimeter (distinguishing ice, promissory notes, and commercial paper) reflects the common-law tradition of defining the category through accumulated examples rather than a single authoritative rule. This approach is historically accurate but leaves modern researchers without a clean general principle.
No other source dictionaries were available for synthesis in this entry. Researchers seeking broader historical treatment should consult English legal dictionaries of the 18th and 19th centuries, where the term received sustained attention in connection with the law of forgery.
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Jurisdictional Note
The term carries the most technical weight in English law and in American jurisdictions whose criminal codes descend from English forgery statutes. Jurisdictions that have adopted comprehensive modern penal codes (including Model Penal Code-influenced revisions) may have replaced the phrase with broader or different statutory language. Always identify the controlling statute before applying any dictionary definition.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Secured Transactions — Security Interest (Definition and Creation) (The Law Mind Contracts & Commercial Law Encyclopedia): relevant for understanding the distinct commercial-law meaning of "security interest" and why it should not be conflated with the criminal-law category.
Federal Securities — Overview (The Law Mind Business Organizations & Corporate Law Encyclopedia): relevant for understanding the federal regulatory definition of "security," which operates independently of and should not be imported into analysis of the criminal-law term.
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