Beautiful stocks and bonds

How about some NON-railroads tonight? I had a few pick-ups come in this week that I'll share.

First the Natco Corp. No idea what this company did, but I would guess it was in the financial industry. Republic Bank Note engraved the vignette of two allegorical engineers, flanking an oddly uninhabited toy town.


I liked the vignette on this Kirby Lumber stock certificate so much I had to have it. Lumber/timber companies don't show up very often and hardly ever with wood-cutters. This certificate has a Western Bank Note imprint at the bottom, but an American Bank Note insignia next to the vignette. That gives it a production date of around 1901 to 1911.


Lastly, one of my new favorites. This unissued stock certificate from the U.S. Sealed Postal Card Co. is circa 1880. Very few of these were ever issued. In 1886, the USSPCC secured a contract with the Post Office Department to produce the first letter sheets. They sub-contracted with American Bank Note to do the design and printing (ABNC, perhaps not coincidentally, also printed this stock certif.). For a couple years these letter sheets were fairly popular, but a fickle public eventually decided it preferred to send postcards, no doubt because they cost half as much. In 1894, the Post Office cancelled their contract with USSPCC and the company folded the following year.

But their legacy lives on -- anyone who's seen the lightweight aerogrammes that the Post Office first began selling for foreign airmail letters in the late 1950s will notice a distinct similarity to the 1886 letter sheet design.

 

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Prices realized at the Boones share auction:

http://www.booneshares.com/AuctionCatalogue/AuctionCatalogueNo55/Resultlist.aspx

 

Hmmm - there didn't appear to be much interest in the U.S. material. Quite a few lots went unsold.

 

Yes, I noticed that.I wonder if the depressed EU economy has anything to do with the low prices?
At the scripophily show in virginia I'm going to ask about the low prices at the Boone auction.
I partly posted the link for the poster asking about prices of the certificates.

 

I came across a great Wall Street Journal article while doing some online searching for yet another project. It's from 2012 but worth a read. There's a loyal band of scripophilists in Belgium working to save some paper stocks and bonds from the shredder. And they've found some historic certificates in the process including the one shown here designed by Art Nouveau artist Alphons Mucha!

 

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What a tragedy that 90% of the certificates have been destroyed. After viewing the certificates in the WSJ slideshow I can see why the USA certs didn't sell so well in Belgium.

 

I just noticed the figure in the far background. Compare her to the figure on the 100 korun Czech note that Mucha also designed. He certainly loved circles!

Here's another interesting article about his work on paper money.

 

I recently checked Terry Cox's database of railroad stocks and bonds and discovered he has started up a new project. Not many people know about Terry's long career as a geologist, specializing in coal. I suppose it was just a matter of time before his professional interests intersected with scripophily, but his newest database is compiling stocks and bonds of North American coal companies. Here's a link to his webpage -- http://www.coxrail.com/coal-background.asp.

I sent him three additions from my collection, which is pretty sparse in this area. I'll post them here for those interested. My collecting is limited to engraved certificates and the vast majority of coal mines were small enterprises, meaning most of those stocks were printed cheaply. If any other forums members have some they can post, let's see 'em!

 

It's been a busy December/January, so still catching up on various threads... Thanks for the links and recent posts of much interest and beauty!

Not sure if anyone noticed in the Smithsonian article linked to, but scroll down in the comments section, and someone posted a link to their thesis on Mucha, which is long and in depth, but also includes a lot of historical background and several illustrations of his works. It can be downloaded in its entirety, here: [PDF link]

 

Scripophily magazine, December 2015

"World auction figures for the 12 months ending November, including China but not eBay, show a 50% jump over 2014. For the last four years
the full year figures for worldwide scripophily auction sales run:2012 €5.4 million, 2013 €6.9 million, 2014 4 million, 2015 €6 million"

 

Just spotted this thread. Granted I am not a big scripophilist (actually won't consider myself one), I do have several Bonds and Certificates that I bought as part of an extension to my Colonial and Confederate Paper Money collection. I am, however, on the lookout for one particular Bond that is classified as the world's first convertible bond. Would love to have that for my collection. Here are a few of my prized possessions, the Massachusetts Commodity Bond which is classified as the world's first inflation-linked bond and the Erlanger Cotton Loan of the Confederate States that has several interesting characteristics of its own. This bond made blockade-running extremely profitable as the bond allowed cotton to be collected at an extremely low cost, instead of collecting interest:

Massachusetts Commodity Bond £750 January 1, 1780 (Anderson MA-22)





Confederate States of America: £100 1863 Erlanger Bond (Ball-156; Criswell-116)

 

Those are fantastic! I've never seen a European-issued Confederate bond before -- very educational. And I think the 1780 Massachussetts bond is the earliest American bond I've ever seen. Big thanks for sharing these!

 

Glad you like them. They represent an important part of our country's history. The European-issued Confederate Bond was the mastermind of Erlander who convinced the Confederate Government to issue these notes to fund the war effort in Europe. The collateral was several bundles of cotton that the Confederate Government held, but the problem was that the Union blockade was very effect and hence made Southern Cotton nearly impossible to export. A lot of European investors lost A LOT of money once the Confederacy fell. They tried to get the US Government to honor these bonds, but to no avail. British Bondholder Committee was formed to pool all of the outstanding Confederate Bonds purchased by England with an attempt to collect on them. Bondholders would deposit their bonds into an account and were given this Scrip Certificate in exchange, but the ratification of the 14th Amendment killed all that notion as all debt that the Confederacy owed was lost as per Section 4 of the amendment.

Confederate States of America: $10,000 1884 Scrip Certificate (Cr. 175)

 

I picked up a new beauty for a good price this week. This is an unissued stock certificate for the Erie & Ohio Rail Road. Note this railroad was owned by the Franklin Canal Company, which, I'm guessing was diversifying before railroads made canals obsolete.

Although it's undated, it was printed somewhere between 1848-50 by Durand, Baldwin & Co, a short-lived bank note company that only existed a few years. This has the look and feel of an obsolete bank note, including the onion skin paper. Typically railroad stocks had a locomotive as the central vignette. This stock has a small one but the largest is an allegorical vignette with a canal boat and tall ships in the background. I'm happy to add this one to my collection!

 

Great catch!

 

I picked up some neat items at the ANA Anaheim show for a great price and I'm just getting around to scanning them. Time to give this thread a bump!

 

just awesome examples

 

Good stuff guys, just picked this up awhile back. my first .

 

Incredible artwork on those old stock and bond certificates!

 

Love the vignette on your Old Colony stock, old49er! It's got everything -- a train, steamship, schooners and wagons.

Here's a few more ...