Down memory lane in domain investing — A walk

These old documents bring back memories.

This weekend I cleaned out some old boxes of files and came across one labeled “domain names”. It contained a bunch of documents I’ve saved over the past 20+ years related to my domain name investing.

There were a handful of my Network Solutions receipts from registering domain names while I was in college. Back then, you’d get a paper confirmation in the snail mail whenever you registered a domain name. I remember going to the mailbox somedays and find a dozen envelopes from Network Solutions. (See image above.)

I also found the transfer documents I sent to Network Solutions when I sold my first website. I built the website in my dorm room using Microsoft Frontpage and sold it on eBay.

Speaking of which, transferring a domain name back then was a big pain. I found a couple of transfer documents I had faxed to Dotster to transfer domains I sold. I even had to copy my photo ID to send along with each multi-page transfer request.

Oh, and then there was this printout of Adsense earnings from January 2005:

Unfortunately, that was just regarding the end of the Adsense gravy train.