Thanks in advance for your advice.
I am looking to buy shares in a company that is selling off a subsidiary. I want to receive a physical certificate of the subsidiary instead of relying on bits and bytes.
Thoughts?

You might be able to, but it's really not worth the effort.

ETA:  Are Will the parent shares physical certificates as well, or do will they reside at a brokerage firm?  If physical, you will get physical certificates (because they won't have any other way to give them to you); if not, you will have to ask for physical.

Physical certificates work sort of like the title to a car...you can't just pass them around or do anything with them w/o going through the (equivalent of the DMV) transfer company that the parent company (typically) hires to handle administration of stock dividend and ownership details for them.  If you want to sell, gift or even send them to a brokerage firm you will have to file paperwork, and it's not real simple paperwork:  it requires what is known in stock market parlance as a Medallion Signature Guarantee...sort of like a notary but harder to find (you'll have to go to a bank that has one).

IMO a) you are introducing another variable into the equation which makes it even more likely for something to go wrong (which it seems you are worried about), b) spinoffs occur all the time* and there is no hocus pocus and the new stock doesn't get lost in the ether and c) it is a big hassle to do anything with them (other than put them in a safe deposit box and forget about them...until they become a hassle for you or someone else).

Additionally, unless there is something unusual about your transaction and/or you own a ton of the parent stock, you won't end up with much of the spinoff...so it's a lot of effort for not much, at least initially.  Unless you have very low or zero commissions it may not be worth it to sell them again, at least not right away.

Last year I think I had 3 companies spinoff part of their operations...went straight into my account on the effective date.  If I had wanted to sell them immediately I could have done so.

I understand that some companies will no longer issue physical stock certificates.

So, it might depend on the company in question.  You could contact their shareholder representative, quite easily if the company has a good website with an investor relations section.

I miss the old paper certificates, Sturm Ruger, for instance had their historic Ruger .22 auto pistol on their certificates.  Playboy, well they had nice certificates also.

Even the generic certificates had 19th century style images of ancient gods and goddesses, supposedly representing industry, I suppose.

As already mentioned, physical certificates are a pain in the neck.  You can buy lots of old invalid stock certs on E-Bay if you want some thing to frame and hang on the wall.

If you have to have an active paper stock certificate, you will just have to undergo a certain level of inconvenience.

Is it because you fear you may someday not be able to prove your ownership?
Having a piece of paper will not, in and of itself, prove anything.  Kinda like
NFA tax stamps, I would not want to rely solely upon my one and only stamp.  I like the fact
a LEO has a copy, my FFL has a copy etc etc.

Is this about just one stock or are you interested in general?

Your gonna cause more problems, in terms of ease of transferability to sell for example, than you're gonna solve IMO.

To each his own tho.

He may have heard of MF Global or PFG Best.
He might also have read Eastwood123's  thread that substantiates that certificates not in your possession are held by a trust company that holds the title and names you as a mere beneficiary.  That goes back to MF Global or PFG Best.  If said trust company runs into financial difficulty, they can liquidate their assets to pay off their creditors - just like MF Global or PFG Best did. The beneficiary is ph*cked and left with nothing.

SIPC should provide some help, though it won't protect you from anything but broker/dealer malfeasance.  Some of Madoff's clients tried to get money from the SIPC, but since they had withdrawn more than they had ever invested, they got nothing.  Others were paid, however.

Don't hear too much about the SIPC, but they are out there.

Ì thought this was the way to go when I started .  Don't make the mistake I did for all the reasons above.  I still have 16 shares of compact floating around somewhere that I could not easily  sell when I sold off hpq.

Just because *you* don't want to rely on bits and bytes doesn't mean the entire underlying system doesn't.

If something happened, your paper would be worthless as they wouldn't know who they gave it to. Paper stock != bearer bonds.