Poll Results - women versus men in scripophily - part 3 Influences and areas of Interest

Thirty-six collectors of antique stocks and bonds participated in a survey about collecting behavior. The goal was to find similarities and differences between men and women. In this third and final part of the review, you can read how collectors may get introduced into our hobby and what related areas of interest they may have. The first part of the review, "Interaction", can be read here, the second part, "Preferences" can be read there. 

Crédito Cántabro
1 share of 2000 Reales Vellon, unissued, Santander 1861
engraved by Antonio Roca y Sallent
source: Artemon auction Sep 2013
double-click image to enlarge

How did you obtain your first historical bond or share ?

Top answer was 'I saw it on a show, bourse, flea market, ..'. With the exception of the three participating women, almost half of the whole group of participants (fourteen men) say that their first collectible was made at a public event such as a bourse or flea market. Bourse organizers : use social media to announce the event, put an ad in a local newspaper, and position a sign board on the sidewalk. With a bit of luck, a number of passers-by will be curious enough to enter the fair, start to like what they discover and become a collector.

Sharing more or less a second place are the answers 'An article in a magazine or a book, made me decide to start collecting' and 'I was looking for other collectibles and found a certificate'.

Five persons, which represent almost 14% of the group (four men and one women) also started collecting after they received a stock or bond as 'gift from a relative, a friend', ' a gift from a collegue or the boss'. Let me add to this selection also that one participant that 'accidentally found a certificate'. Sure, a surprise for everyone of them. This expands this group to six persons, or almost 17%. 

Double-click image to enlarge

Did you ever collect anything as a child ?

We already learned how our participants became a scripophily collector. But were they "born" to be a collector? Do they have a nose for collecting since childhood ? Yes they have!  All women and the larger part of the men have collected stuff as a child. In my case, I always seemed to have collected something. It started at the age of six with cigar labels, which I got from my grandfather. Soon I switched to stamps that my grandmother gave to me, and at the age of ten I started collecting coins, like my father. Two years later I collected minerals, like an uncle did. Each one of these collections lasted three years at most.

In 1996, Stacey Menzel Baker and James W. Gentry, both from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, revealed (link see at the bottom) that children collect for following reasons :

• to do something that is fun and helps them to relieve their boredom
• to learn or to satisfy curiosity
• to satisfy a passion, where the knowledge goes beyond the collected items (e.g. knowing everything about horses, or base ball players)
• to be unique
• to associate with others

Did someone in your family collect anything ?

Especially in the context of the previously mentioned study, the outcome of this question is very interesting. A small majority of the participants knew about someone else in the family that was a collector.  But almost the half of the group did not. 

What about other collectibles ?

The major part of the participants started with collecting something else and added scripophily to their activities at a later point in their life. 

How are you interested in financial or economical topics outside scripophily ?

About half of the participants are interested in both the past and the present when it concerns finance and economics. Almost all of the thirty-six participants (29 = 17+12) are interested in present day financial and economical topics. 

What is it that makes a historical security interesting to you ?

This was a multiple choice question. Top answer : 'some (little) history behind the certificate'. Though 'beauty' scored badly in the pair-wise comparisons of preferences, see part two of the review, 'the certificate design' is the 2nd most interesting aspect for our participants.  Maybe a surprise for some of us, but the 'names or signatures' seem less interesting, and the least chosen answer is 'the way by whom or how it was printed' .

This concludes the third and final part of the survey review. Also here, it was difficult to recognize any differences in behavior between men and woman. The reason for this is that there were simply not enough female collectors participating in the survey.

I especially want to thank the participants, every one of them, for their willingness to participate in this survey.

F.L.

Reference links

• Stacey Menzel Baker and James W. Gentry (1996) ,"Kids As Collectors: a Phenomenological Study of First and Fifth Graders", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 23, eds. Kim P. Corfman and John G. Lynch Jr., Provo, UT : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 132-137.
• An abstract of the above study has been published online by the Association For Consumer Research, see here 

NB : Antonio Roca y Sallent
The illustrations used in this poll and the three follow-up reviews are all engraved by the Spanish burin engraver Antonio Roca y Sallent (18??-1864). Antonio Roca was a professor at the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona [Benezit IX, 21] . More works from him can be seen in the following online places :

• The 1857 shares of La Salvadora, compañia de seguros maritimos, avales y subvenciones, see here, here and there .
• An 1859 print of Don Quixote mistakes the priest for the Princess Micomicona, see here ; source: Iconography of Don Quixote, put online by the Texas A&M University
• The 1861 shares of Crédito Cántabro , see above 
• The 1862 shares of Crédito Castellano , see here 
• An 1865 print of Cervantes' portrait, see there , from Don Quijote de la Mancha ; source: Iconography of Don Quixote, put online by the Texas A&M Universit
• An undated print of Córdova - carcel de la Inquisicion, see there