Boone's upcoming sale of historic bonds and shares will take place in Brussels. It includes two auction sessions followed by a collectors bourse. One of the lots featured is this tennis forerunner share certificate issued as early as 1840.
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| Société du Jeu De Paume stock certificate for 1000 Francs shares Paris, 1840 |
The event starts on Friday evening 28 Oct 2016. As good as 100 collections and investor lots will then be offered. For instance, lot 7 is a group of 118 bonds and shares from Belgian automobile companies. According to the auctioneer, the seller took almost 30 years to build this collection. The lot's start price is €1,500 which comes down to €13 per certificate. Other collections awaiting a new owner involve themes like horse-racing, Algeria, Belgian beer, Canadian gold mines, Egypt, French wine and many more.
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| Mario Boone's 57th auction catalogue depicts lot 1056, a rare 1920 Fiat share discovered in 2001 in the US. Click image to enlarge. |
The share illustrated at the top is one of 1500 lots auctioned on the next Saturday. The Société du Jeu de Paume was founded in 1839 for the promotion of the Jeu de Paume sport. Do you know the movie The French Lieutenant's Woman ? Then you might remember the scene in which Jeremy Irons plays this precursor of the tennis game. Modern lawn-tennis developed from the sport in the second half of the 19th century. At the same time Jeu de Paume remained popular. In 1908 the American Jay Gould II, grandson of railway tycoon Jay Gould, won the Summer Olympics Gold medal for Jeu de Paume. (source Wikipedia)
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| Société du Jeu de Paume detail from the certificate at the top The stamped company seal shows two rackets. |
The share certificate bears the stamped seal of the company. The seal pictures a pair of rackets, certainly the earliest ones seen in scripophily. Funny, the rackets look a bit distorted. Click the image to have a closer look. Could someone win Roland Garros with a bent racket like that ? Yet, the picture is not the result of an inaccurate stamp design. In those days, rackets were not built as symmetrically as today.
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| Rackets were often built asymmetrically. Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers Vol. 7 p.103 Paumier, Pl. I. Paulmerie, Jeu de Paulme et Construction de la Raquette Denis Diderot & Jean le Rond d'Alembert, Paris, 1772 Source : Wikipedia |
Practical info on the event :
F.L.
- Auction date: 28 and 29 October 2016
- Bourse : 30 October 2016
- Place: Brussels, Belgium
- Further info, see here
F.L.
PS: You might want to read this too, if you are interested in US railroads.
By the way, the Belgian automobile collection (118 certificates) went €1900. The 1840 share in the Société du Jeu de Paume was bid up to €600.
ReplyDeleteF.L.