Friday, June 24, 2016

Scripophily magazine celebrates 100 issues

The "World Auction Sales" table in Scripophily magazine reports the performances of auctions over the preceding period. Auctions are measured by the number of lots offered, sell ratio and the corresponding turnover. Also, included is eBay as an auction platform. Did you know that, over the period Dec 2015 - Feb 2016, the average lot price recorded in eBay's scripophily section was €14 in Europe, and €23 in the US (*).
(*) after applying cleansing operations on the data, such as eliminating double counted lots, because some auctioneers sell simultaneously through eBay

Scripophily magazine No. 100 - April 2016
Scripophily magazine No. 100 - April 2016

Scripophily magazine was first published in 1982 under the name The Bond & Share Society Journal. In April 2016 the International Bond & Share Society honoured the joyous occasion of the journal's hundredth publication with a separate 44-page commemorative section, printed nostalgically in black and white on A5 paper size. The magazine has come a long way. Editor Max Hensley explains:
A technological advance of great importance for Scripophily (magazine) has been the Internet. The Dec 2015 issue contained an article written in Turkey, edited in the US and composed in the UK, all within weeks. This would have been impossible before the internet.
Editor Max adds that today, the magazine appears on high quality paper, articles are longer and brought with more images in full color. Journals from the 1990s contained an average of 5 auction reports whereas now the issue reports about twenty to thirty auctions. Every issue was produced " .. without paying a penny for content."


" The hollow surprise of the Londonderry Gold Mine is one
of the articles from the commemorative section in Scripophily
magazine, written by Anne Marie Hendy. It reads like Harry Potter."
, says this unshaven blogger.

As usual, this issue brings society matters, market news, bourse reviews, auction reviews, an events calendar, member classifieds, book reviews, interviews and lots of pictures of collector friends and bonds and shares. The commemorative section contains the following set of snapshots from the first two decades :
  • Out of the ordinary bonds in out of the way auction, a comic essay
  • The formation of British companies to 1856
  • Further "nuggets" from Western Australia : The hollow surprise of the Londonderry Gold Mine
  • Coastal shipping - a brief, about British coastal shipping scripophily
  • The expensive business of raising railway loans : the Shanghai-Nanking Loan Agreement
  • The "Train Renard"
  • Auction reports, reports on the F.H.W. and Witula auctions from 1992
  • Dome and Lakeshore - two top Ontario gold mines
  • Trillion $$$ Standard Oil stock comes home !
  • UK Tramways - a neglected field of scripophily
  • The King George's Sound Company - the American/Chinese fur trade in 1785
  • Philoscripy? Bonditry? Shyloxis? , explains the origins of the word scripophily
  • Dangerous Edison forgeries on the market
  • HP Magazin, a summary from HP magazine Jan 1996
  • Share companies in Soviet Russia
  • A major art thief signs shares, the story of Arsène Goedertier and the Plantexel  company
  • The man who robbed the Robber Barrons, about William Mann, founder of the Mann's Boudoir Car Company
  • Otto Mears, Colorado railroad pioneer
  • Art Nouveau-Jugendstil
  • Scripophily in Tokyo
  • Go West, yunger Mann ! , German immigrants in Texas
Scripophily magazine is a publication from IBSS .

F.L.


Sunday, June 19, 2016

Booklet : Gedruckte Werte

Hermann Giesecke and Alphonse Devrient founded in 1852 the Typografisches Institut Giesecke & Devrient in Leipzig. On the first day of October G&D received an order for the printing of securities from the Kieritzscher Rübenzucker-Action-Verein (English: Kieritzsch Sugar Beet Company). It took only two weeks to deliver the 400 share certificates to the customer.

Gedruckte Werte is the title of the publication accompanying the exhibition with the same name at thMuseum of the Printing Arts Leipzig. Besides interesting facts about the history of the bank note and securities printer Giesecke & Devrient, this work tells us how securities were designed and produced in the 19th and 20th century, and much more. 

Booklet from the exhibition Gedruckte Werte

  • Title: Gedruckte Werte, in English: Printed Values
  • Publisher : Museum für Druckkunst Leipzig, 2016
  • ID : ISBN 978-3-9817257-1-1
  • Languages : German
  • Number of pages : 59
  • Images : more than 40 color images (12 from shares and bonds)
  • Index : no index

Chapters

  • KANN MAN VERTRAUEN DRUCKEN? AKTIEN ALS MEDIUM DER INDUSTRIEKULTUR, (freely translated) Can trust be printed ? Share certificates as a medium of industrial culture.
  • DIE HERSTELLUNG VON WERTPAPIEREN AM BEISPIEL VON AKTIEN, The production of securities, illustrated with share certificates 
  • GIESECKE & DEVRIENT - WERTPAPIERDRUCK IN LEIPZIG, Giesecke & Devrient - security printing in Leipzig 
  • IKONOGRAPHIE DER WIRTSCHAFT - DAS BILDPROGRAMM AUF WERTPAPIEREN, Iconography of economy - images on securities 
  • GELDÄHNLICHE PAPIER -  GELDWERTE DRUCK, Money alike papers - the printing of (other) values (such as tickets for the Olympic Games) 


  • The publication is written in German. Typical technical German terms related to the world of printing and business are used throughout the chapters, so this can be a challenge for non-German speakers, like myself. But a good dictionary, or Google Translate on your smartphone, can help you out. The effort is absolutely worthwhile. I absorbed the publication chapter by chapter right up to the end !

    Giesecke & Devrient printer proof share certificate from the Berliner Aquarium
    This  Berliner Aquarium 200 Thaler share (printer proof),
    dated 1870, is one of the certificates on display.
    More on this certificate in a follow up post.
    image courtesy : Museum für Druckkunst Leipzig

    The exhibition runs until 14 august 2016. The accompanying booklet is available from the Museum's shop at 8,80 € (please ask the museum for the shipment cost).

    • More about the exhibition, see here 
    • Museum für Druckkunst Leipzig, in German, in English 

    F.L.

    Friday, June 10, 2016

    Archives International Auctions - part XXXIII



    Mukden Bank of Industrial Development (lot 227)
    Pair of color trial ABNC printer proofs 
    - proofs printed in a color other than the issued color - 
    for $1 bond and $10 bond, 1918-1919 issue
    -
    The currency mentioned on the proofs is the Silver Dollar, introduced in 1914 as the national currency of the Republic of China. The bank was one of the many banks in China that was allowed to issue banknotes. Mukden is the Manchu name for the city of Shenyang. With the building of the South Manchurian Railway, Mukden became a stronghold of Russia, which occupied it after the Boxer Rebellion. Following the Japanese victory over Russia (1905) the city became part of the Japanese-controlled South Manchuria Railway Zone.
    -
    Estimated at $200-400



    Archives International Auctions - Part XXXIII
    Chinese, Asian & Worldwide Banknotes and Scripophily



    This auction contains approximately 50 lots of scripophily.


    • Dates : June 28, 2016 
    • Place : Fort Lee, NJ 
    • Further info : see here , for the catalog there 



    F.L