Bonds, financial instruments that pay periodic interest and pay
back a principal amount at maturity, normally have coupons
attached to them that are good for one interest payment each -
so the main Bond Certificate is good for the principal amount,
and it will have as many coupons as interest payments. For
example, a ten-year bond that was just issued that pays interest
twice a year would have twenty coupons attached. As each
interest payment was issued, the coupon would be detached and
handed in to the issuer. (this is usually kept track of
electronically these days, but that's the basic concept.)  Strip
bonds, or stripped bonds, on the other hand, are bonds that have
had the interest coupons detached and sold separately from the
principal. A strip bond refers to either a package of interest
coupons or to the cert good for the principal - if they are from
the same bond originally, they will be priced almost identically
in most cases. Strip bonds are priced much lower than normal
bonds to reflect the fact tha