diff --git a/pdfbox/src/test/java/org/apache/pdfbox/cos/TestCOSObject.java b/pdfbox/src/test/java/org/apache/pdfbox/cos/TestCOSObject.java
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..25beb468e16
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pdfbox/src/test/java/org/apache/pdfbox/cos/TestCOSObject.java
@@ -0,0 +1,176 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+ * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+ * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+ * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+ * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+ * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+package org.apache.pdfbox.cos;
+
+import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
+import org.apache.pdfbox.io.RandomAccessReadView;
+import org.junit.jupiter.api.BeforeAll;
+import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
+
+import static org.apache.pdfbox.cos.TestVisitor.ESC_CHAR_STRING_PDF_FORMAT;
+import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertEquals;
+import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertFalse;
+import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertTrue;
+
+/**
+ * Test class for {@link COSObject}.
+ */
+class TestCOSObject extends TestCOSBase implements ICOSParser
+{
+    static COSObjectKey key = new COSObjectKey( 121L, 0 );
+    static COSString cosString;
+
+    @BeforeAll
+    static void setUp()
+    {
+        cosString = new COSString( "test string" );
+        cosString.setKey( key );    // same key as the proxy object, because
+            // this will be the dereferenced object.
+        cosString.setDirect( true );    // If we were writing this as the value
+            // in a COSDictionary (which we are not) we would use this object
+            // directly and not create a reference for it.
+        testCOSBase = new COSObject( cosString );
+    }
+
+     @Test
+    void testGetCOSObject()
+    {
+        assert( testCOSBase.getCOSObject() instanceof COSObject );
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * TODO: It seems that the "direct" flag indicates that this object can be
+     * added as a COSDictionary value directly, otherwise a new referenced object
+     * should be created. If so, {@link COSObject}s (which simply proxy other
+     * {@link COSBase}-derived objects) should never be "direct," and {@link COSObject}
+     * should be modified to enforce this rule.
+     */
+    @Test
+    @Override
+    void testIsSetDirect()
+    {
+        testCOSBase.setDirect(true);
+        assertFalse(testCOSBase.isDirect());
+        testCOSBase.setDirect(false);
+        assertFalse(testCOSBase.isDirect());
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    void testGetObject()
+    {
+        COSBase base = ((COSObject) testCOSBase).getObject();
+        // testCOSBase has no parser, so the object returned should be the
+        // string object we initialized it with.
+        assertEquals( cosString, base );
+        assertTrue( ((COSObject) testCOSBase).isDereferenced() );
+
+        final COSObject testCOSObject = new COSObject( key, this );
+
+        // start by making sure that the test object is indirect and is not dereferenced.
+        assertFalse( testCOSObject.isDereferenced() );
+
+        // getObject should cause the referenced object to be dereferenced
+        base = testCOSObject.getObject();
+        assertTrue( testCOSObject.isDereferenced() );
+        assertEquals( cosString, base );
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Test accept() - tests the interface for visiting a document at the COS level.
+     * In the case of proxy {@link COSObject} the visitor is passed either to the
+     * encapsulated object, if it is present or can be dereferenced, or to the
+     * {@link COSNull#NULL} global object.
+     */
+    @Test
+    void testAccept() throws IOException
+    {
+        String expected = "(" + ESC_CHAR_STRING_PDF_FORMAT + ")";
+        ByteArrayOutputStream outStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
+        TestVisitor visitor = new TestVisitor(outStream);
+        testCOSBase.accept( visitor );
+        // the base test object encapsulates a string.
+        assertEquals( expected, outStream.toString( StandardCharsets.ISO_8859_1 ));
+        outStream.reset();
+        // this new COSObject will dereference to the same string object as above.
+        COSObject testCOSObject = new COSObject( key, this );
+        testCOSObject.accept( visitor );
+        assertEquals( expected, outStream.toString( StandardCharsets.ISO_8859_1 ));
+        outStream.reset();
+        testCOSObject.setToNull();
+        testCOSObject.accept( visitor );
+        assertEquals( "COSNull.NULL", outStream.toString( StandardCharsets.ISO_8859_1 ));
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    void testIsCOSObjectNull()
+    {
+        COSObject testCOSObject = new COSObject( key, this );
+        // The object has not been dereferenced, so this method should
+        // return true.
+        assertTrue( testCOSObject.isObjectNull());
+        testCOSObject.getObject();  // This should dereference the object
+        assertFalse( testCOSObject.isObjectNull());
+
+        // this should set the encapsulated object to COSNull.NULL
+        // TODO: should COSObject.setToNull() also clear the COSObjectKey?
+        testCOSObject.setToNull();
+
+        // isObjectNull() does not test for a COSNull object but only tests
+        // if the encapsulated reference actually is null. Thus, if the
+        // encapsulated object is COSNull it will still return false.
+        // TODO: is this the intention?
+        assertFalse( testCOSObject.isObjectNull());
+
+        // set to null should have zeroed out the parser, so no further
+        // dereferencing should be possible.
+        COSBase base = testCOSObject.getObject();
+        assertEquals( COSNull.NULL, base );
+    }
+
+    @Test
+    public void testNullObjectConstructor()
+    {
+        COSObject testCOSObject = new COSObject( COSNull.NULL, this );
+        assertTrue( testCOSObject.isDereferenced());
+        assertFalse( testCOSObject.isObjectNull()); // TODO: Is this really the intention?
+        COSBase base = testCOSObject.getObject();
+        assertEquals( COSNull.NULL, base );
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    public COSBase dereferenceCOSObject( COSObject obj ) throws IOException
+    {
+        return cosString;
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Unused but required by ICOSParser interface
+     *
+     * @param startPosition start position within the underlying random access read
+     * @param streamLength stream length
+     * @return  null
+     * @throws IOException
+     */
+    @Override
+    public RandomAccessReadView createRandomAccessReadView( long startPosition, long streamLength ) throws IOException
+    {
+        return null;
+    }
+}
diff --git a/pdfbox/src/test/java/org/apache/pdfbox/cos/TestVisitor.java b/pdfbox/src/test/java/org/apache/pdfbox/cos/TestVisitor.java
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..8eeea419fd5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pdfbox/src/test/java/org/apache/pdfbox/cos/TestVisitor.java
@@ -0,0 +1,108 @@
+package org.apache.pdfbox.cos;
+
+import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
+
+public class TestVisitor implements ICOSVisitor
+{
+    // TODO: make these statics package private in the other classes so we can
+    //  consume them but remain in sync.
+    /**
+     * The true boolean token.
+     */
+    private static final byte[] TRUE_BYTES = { 116, 114, 117, 101 }; // "true".getBytes("ISO-8859-1")
+    /**
+     * The false boolean token.
+     */
+    private static final byte[] FALSE_BYTES = { 102, 97, 108, 115, 101 }; // "false".getBytes("ISO-8859-1")
+
+    static final String ESC_CHAR_STRING_PDF_FORMAT =    // We can probably change this to an arbitrary string
+            "\\( test#some\\) escaped< \\\\chars>!~1239857 ";
+
+    private final ByteArrayOutputStream output;
+
+    public TestVisitor( ByteArrayOutputStream outStream )
+    {
+        output = outStream;
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    public void visitFromArray( COSArray obj ) throws IOException
+    {
+        // TODO: Write something to the output buffer just so we know that the visitor got called.
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    public void visitFromBoolean( COSBoolean cosBoolean ) throws IOException
+    {
+        if( cosBoolean.getValue() )
+        {
+            output.write( TRUE_BYTES );
+        }
+        else
+        {
+            output.write( FALSE_BYTES );
+        }
+
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    public void visitFromDictionary( COSDictionary obj ) throws IOException
+    {
+        // Write something to the output buffer just so we know that the visitor got called.
+
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    public void visitFromDocument( COSDocument obj ) throws IOException
+    {
+        // Write something to the output buffer just so we know that the visitor got called.
+
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    public void visitFromFloat( COSFloat cosFloat ) throws IOException
+    {
+        // Write something to the output buffer just so we know that the visitor got called.
+        output.write( cosFloat.toString().getBytes( StandardCharsets.ISO_8859_1 ) );
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    public void visitFromInt( COSInteger cosInteger ) throws IOException
+    {
+        // Write something to the output buffer just so we know that the visitor got called.
+        output.write( Integer.toString( cosInteger.intValue() ).getBytes( StandardCharsets.ISO_8859_1 ) );
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    public void visitFromName( COSName obj ) throws IOException
+    {
+        throw new IOException();
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    public void visitFromNull( COSNull obj ) throws IOException
+    {
+        output.write( "COSNull.NULL".getBytes( StandardCharsets.ISO_8859_1 ));
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    public void visitFromStream( COSStream obj ) throws IOException
+    {
+
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    public void visitFromString( COSString cosString ) throws IOException
+    {
+        if (cosString.getForceHexForm())
+        {
+            output.write( ("<" + cosString.toHexString() + ">").getBytes( StandardCharsets.ISO_8859_1 ));
+        }
+        else
+        {
+            output.write( ("(" + ESC_CHAR_STRING_PDF_FORMAT + ")").getBytes( StandardCharsets.ISO_8859_1 ));
+        }
+    }
+}