Friday, January 6, 2017

Spink US Jan 2017 auction

Spink US is announcing details of their upcoming Numismatic Collector's Series Sale. The auction features more than 1,000 lots of coins, banknotes, medals, and the like. Over sixty lots of scripophily items are included, mainly consisting of US stocks and bonds. Four of these comprise historic Matson Navigation Company securities.

vignette of the brigantine Lurline, Matson Navigation  Company


William Matson (1849-1917) was a Swedish-born American shipping executive. As a youngster he became friends with the industrialist and sugar beet refiner Claus Spreckels while working on the latter's family yacht. With the help of Spreckels, Matson founded in 1882 his own shipping business, the Matson Navigation Company. Its ships carried merchandise from the US Pacific Coast to the Hawaiian islands and returned with sugar. In the early 1900s Matson introduced passenger lines to Hawaii where he soon opened hotels. Its luxurious Matson Airlines operated between San Francisco and Hawaii (1946-1948).


stock certificate from the Matson Navigation Company
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The collector's market knows a few types of historic Matson Navigation Company shares. These show vignettes of the company's important ships :
  • The company's blue $100 shares (capital $1,500,000) were issued when the company incorporated in 1901. They illustrate a vignette of the barque Roderick Dhu, the first ship to have a cold storage and electric plant with electric lights on board. 
  • Shortly before World War I, the company increases its capital to $5,000,000. Matson's brown $100 shares depict the SS Lurline (1908),  the company's first steamer. 
  • Spink US now offers four lots, each consisting of about 500 stock certificates issued in the 1940s and 1950s. Printed in green and black by the Western Bank Note & Eng. Co. Chicago, their design show the brigantine Lurline (I) purchased by Matson in 1887. Coming from Hawaii the ship carried 600 tons of sugar and 12 passengers.

Details of the auction
  • Dates: 17 & 18 Jan 2017
  • Location : New York
  • More info : see here 


F.L.


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