Poll results - Collecting motives

Do you prefer Beauty or are you more satisfied with A Good Bargain? When it comes to collecting what do you prefer? 

On the occasion of this blog's 10th anniversary, I launched in May 2020 an online poll about five collecting motives :  

• Scarcity
• Beauty
• A Good Bargain
• Collection Completeness
• and Historical Significance. 

These resulted in ten possible combinations: scarcity-beauty, scarcity-a good bargain, etc. For each combination the participant was asked to choose between one or both, in other words, which one he or she preferred.

I leave it up to you to decide to which collecting motive the above share corresponds. The Ford Motor Company of Canada gained all Ford patent rights and selling privileges to all parts of the British Empire other than Great Britain and Ireland. Its share shows the company's sales markets in the British Empire on both hemispheres. It was issued in 1932. That year Adolf Hitler obtained German citizenship, the Kreuger & Toll business empire collapsed, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached its lowest level of the Great Depression and Gandhi, in jail, began his first anti-untouchability fast. 

I believed that the poll questions asked were relevant for banknote, coin, and stamp collectors as well. Thus, I promoted my poll also through the International Bond and Share Society (IBSS) and on a number of numismatic online audiences as well, such as CoinsWeekly, Numismatic Bibliomania Society’s E-Sylum newsletter, a IBNS discussion group, and several scripophily Facebook groups.

It took a few months, but all together 123 people cast their votes. In addition to questions on collecting motives, I started the poll with some general questions to have a better idea of the participants. 

Though poll participation was anonymous, I asked about the participant's country. People responded from at least 20 countries. Top 3 locations were USA, 29%, Germany, 16% and UK, 11%. See the Poll Participants table for the details. 

On the question Are you a member of a scripophily society? 41% replied they were not. But all 8 Belgian participants were members of a scripophily society, wonderful.

The next question queried the participants for their IBSS membership : 

• 56% confirmed they were members. 
• 28% said they were not and “didn’t care”.
• The remainder, 15% or 19 participants, replied they were not IBSS members but “wanted to find out more about IBSS”. In this category we find 2 Belgians, 3 Germans, 1 Indonesian, 1 Dutchman, 1 Filipino, 2 Poles, 1 UK citizen and 6 Americans.

On the question How long have you been a collector of scripophily? 

• 82% said ‘5 years or more’.  I'll call these group "the experienced" ones. 
• 6% indicated they ‘did not collect scripophily’. 
• 15 participants -12%- said ‘less than 5 years’. These are the "starters". Of the latter group, 5 were from the USA. Bravo!

Now what about the collecting motives? Which one is the absolute winner? Do we have the same results for the top 3 locations? Are there any differences between our "starters" and "the experienced" ? Let’s find out.

I used the following method to derive a ranking. For each one of the participants I counted how many times a motive was chosen in the participant’s comparisons. For example, if someone choose Beauty over Scarcity, then Beauty deserved one point, Scarcity zero. This led to 2460 scores : 123 participants * 10 pair comparisons * 2 motives.

And the winner is…

1 Collection Completeness, 332 points

2 Historical Significance, 323 pts

3 Scarcity, 260 pts

4 Beauty, 159 pts

5 A Good Bargain, 156 pts

The overall winner in the contest is Collection Completeness, closely followed by Historical Significance.  

But the numbers also revealed that there are a two nuances. 

1. The group of the American respondents, 36 of them, however preferred Historical Significance above Collection Completeness. 
2. When we analyze the results by the number of years a person is collecting, only one motive prevailed. All 15 participants collecting less than 5 years - our "starters" - strongly preferred Historical Significance above all the other preferences.

Who are the tailenders ? 

This might be a surprise but Beauty and A Good Bargain are apparently less important than the other ones when it comes to collecting motives. Even more, this finding applies to both our starters and the experienced. 

This Ford Canada share may trigger one or more collecting motives. There is a lot to tell about. As you can see in this vignette, the Indian subcontinent is marked. One of Ford Canada's subsidiaries was Ford India Private Ltd where production began in 1926. An extraordinary Ford model was used by Mahatma Gandhi after he settled in Sevagram in 1936. There was no road to Sevagram and during rains people had to walk in knee-deep mud to the place, or use an ox cart to get there. The industrialist Jamnalal Bajaj, a close associate of Gandhi, arranged for a special vehicle to transport VIPs to Sevagram. It consisted of a sawn-off rear half of an old Ford car, drawn by oxen. They called it the 'Oxford'. In 1941 automobile magnate Henry Ford would write Gandhi a letter to tell him how much he admired Gandhi. 

With this poll I did not reach collectors from South America, Africa and scripophily countries France, Russia, and China. It would be interesting to repeat the experiment on a future occasion and include a version in Spanish, French, Russian and Chinese.

My sincere thanks to all who participated and spread the word. I hope you found it as interesting as I did.

Happy New Year !

F.L. 

Previous posts

• Unleash your detective skills with scripophily puzzle no. 4! 
• Osakekirjat Kertovat, Finnish scripophily book review 

Poll results - Does our hobby needs another name ?

Someone Else : What's that thing called again that you write about ?
Me: Scripophily !
Someone Else: Scripalcoly ?
Me: SCRI - PO - PHI - LY ! (I'm not yelling, just excessively articulating)
Me: It is similar to PHI-LA-TE-LY. (Still not yelling, still excessively articulating, but faster, philately is a known word, right?)
Someone Else: Don't know philnatalie either !
Me: Doesn't matter. It's about old bond and share certificates.

Outsiders and newcomers struggle with the specialist term we use for our hobby. That shouldn't be a surprise. What do you think of these three "collecting" terms : deltiology (postcards), tegestology (beer mats) and arctophily (teddy bears) ? By the time you have read the last one, you have forgotten already the first one (I did).

Before 1978, people referred to our hobby as the collecting of stocks and bonds. In that year The Financial Times organized a contest to choose a name. It was Arthur Howell from the UK who won the competition with the term scripophily. Suggestions from other participants included: philoscripy, promissophily, syngrahophily, philosyngraphy, bonditry and shyloxis.
In the beginning the winning term was not widely accepted at all. Today, the word has become more established thanks to the promotional efforts of collector associations, auction houses, scripophily dealers and museums. 

Earlier this year, I launched a small poll with the question if our hobby would need another name? Here are the results, you can make your own conclusion. But if you ask me, scripophily is here to stay.

F.L.


Related links:

• Initial poll article 

References

• What is the word for people who collect ..? , Oxford Dictionaries
• Philoscripy? Bonditry, Shyloxis?, The Bond & Share Society Journal, Feb 1996 (also included in the commemorative section of Scripophily magazine No 100)
• What is scripophily ?

Poll : Does our hobby needs another name ?

While NUMISMATISTS are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, this discipline also includes the broader study of paper money, tokens, and related objects. In the 1970s collectors started using the term NOTAPHILY for collecting paper currency and banknotes. 

Anyone knows the meaning of the word EXONUMIA ? Some do. Exonumia is the hobby of collecting numismatic items (such as tokens, medals, or scrip) other than coins, paper money and bond and share certificates. 

What's in a name ? Scripophily stands for the study and collection
of securities and related items, such as this certificate for ordinary
shares of 10 Rupees in the Jodhpur Commercial Bank Ltd., issued 1946.

For bond and share certificates, including related securites, there is the term SCRIPOPHILY (see also here). The word was introduced in the 1970s and it took a decade for the word to become more widely known. I just googled the word and the search engine told me it had found more than 350,000 results ( philately yielded 820,000 results).

From my pre-Internet periode I still remember discussions between dealers on the correctness and suitability of the term scripophily. Some said the word didn't cover the full meaning, or it could not easily be pronounced. Others were happy with it and argued just the opposite. Forty years after its introduction, the word scripophily has been translated into many languages (see here again) .

This is a test note specimen from Nixdorf Computer. Started as
a computer manufacturer, the company specialized into the production
and servicing of  self-service transaction systems (such as ATMs).
The company eventually became Wincor Nixdorf.
Is this an example of scripophily, notaphily, or exonumia ?

A recent online discussion between IBSS members, brought up the question again whether or not scripophily should be replaced by another term. 

What do you think ? Tell us by participating in the poll. 

Poll information :

• You can locate the poll in the right margin of this blog. 
• Answers are anonymously and will be kept that way. 
• The poll will be closed on 30th March 2016. 

Thank you for your participation.

Happy New Year 

F.L.

P.S. 

The word PHILATELY, used for collecting stamps, was introduced in the 1860s. Its inventor, Georges Herpin, coined this word as a better alternative for the term timbromania (source: Wikipedia).




Update (2016 July)
The poll result can be viewed here .

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.

Poll Results - women versus men in scripophily - part 2 Preferences

In part 2 of the poll's review we will have a look at the preferences that men and women have when they collect old bonds and shares. Do men and women show different preferences, or are these rather similar ?

original size of detail : about 1 cm x 1 cm
scan resolution : 300 dpi
no scaling

In part 1 you could read that 36 persons, including 33 men and 3 women, have answered more than twenty questions. Ten questions queried the participants about their preferences. The following five preferences were compared in pairs :

• Scarcity
• Beauty
• A Good Bargain
• Collection Completeness
• Historical Significance

This resulted into ten possible combinations : scarcity-beauty, scarcity-a good bargain, et cetera . For each combination the participant was asked to choose between one of both, in other words which one he preferred. Let us no longer beat around the bush and have a quick look at their answers.

Scarcity versus Beauty
If you had to choose between Scarcity or Beauty, what would you choose ? Apparently the men prefer Scarcity above Beauty. Two of our three female participants prefer Beauty. But with a difference of only one female vote, on a total of three, it is not obvious to decide that the women in general prefer Beauty over Scarcity. So no clear conclusion can be made that applies to both genders.

double-click to enlarge images

Beauty versus A Good Bargain
If you are looking for a good bargain, then you will make a better investment. At least that is what you think.  Results :

• men : Needless to say, this is a difficult choice. Men equally prefer both. 
• women : There is no clear outcome; two of our three female participants prefer Beauty, unfortunately the number of participants is too small to decide that Beauty is preferred over A Good Bargain.

Collection Completeness versus Beauty
Not much doubt here, men mostly prefer Collection Completeness over Beauty. No clear and unambiguous outcome here as well for the women.

Poll Results - women versus men in scripophily - part 1 Interaction

Do women and men collect in a similar way ? This question was the main motivation to do a poll, or rather a survey, about the differences or similarities between women and men in scripophily.

original size of detail : 1cm x 1cm
scan resolution : 300 dpi
no scaling

The survey counted 36 participants, which is almost half the number of participants in the previous poll, see here. However, in contrast to the preceding one, this poll consisted of not one but twenty-two questions ! Some interesting observations could be made and I had to group, discuss and publish the survey results that were more or less related to each other into three different parts :

• part 1 Interaction
• part 2 Preferences
• part 3 Influences and areas of interest

Let's get on with part 1.

A ratio of 1 to 11

In total 36 persons have participated including 33 men and 3 women. I must thank both sides for their brave contributions! Yes, a ratio of 1/11 in favor of the men, but I am pleasantly surprised with the attendance of the female participants.

Question : How many male collectors do you know ?
Every participant knows at least one other male collector. Almost two-thirds even know at least eleven male collectors and this applies to the men and the women. Several participants actually know more than a hundred male collectors. If you are a member of a large scripophily association, or active as a professional dealer or if you are simply extremely busy in social networks on the Internet, then this seems possible.

double-click image to enlarge

Question : How many female collectors do you know ?
About half of the men know at least 1 female collector, but the other half of the men do not know any women collectors (yet). It is time getting to know each other, isn't it ? One male participant seems to know eleven or more female collectors, and this can also be said for one female participant. Great. The little group of women that participated all know at least one other female collector. Unfortunately no one participating seems to have met more than 100 different female collectors.

Question : In the past 12 months, where did you obtain new additions for your collection ?
Aha, interesting question. Important here is the fact that our participants were allowed to select more than one answer. Online auction platforms such as eBay is the most choosen answer, immediately followed by the answer Classical auctions. To a lesser extent, but still popular were the answers Collector bourses and fairs and, why not, From fellow collectors.  In other words, bourses are events when collectors obtain a significant part of their collections. Bourses are also places were collectors meet collector friends. Our participants found to a far lesser degree new material in Web shops. Without cause or not ?

Two male participants found no new entries for their collection for the past 12 months. Two persons indicated to have Other sources and both of them further specified that source as a 'retail shop'.

Question : Who is easier to bargain with ?
In general the male participants prefer ... men to bargain with.  And so do the women! Who can explain this?

The FUN question 

I'll end this first part of the review with the last, optional, question of the survey : What advice can you give to the opposite sex ? Meant as a joke question, most participants choose one of the options at their own risk and I'll leave the interpretation of the result in full trust to the reader.

Part two and three will be published in August, see here, and September 2013, see there.

F.L.

PS : If you want to find out more about the images of the man and woman used in this article, then read further below.

double-click image to enlarge

The images shown in this article are details from the 1857 share of La Salvadora, a Spanish insurance company. The share shows four scenes of a man and a woman in a rather dramatic situation. You should have a look at the entire certificate here. Other scenes will be shown in more detail in the follow up articles of this poll review.

Many shares feature men and women in their vignettes. However, in most cases the figures are crudely drawn, or are depicted as gods and goddesses without any human traits and emotions. This certainly does not apply to this share. The designer, unknown, managed to draw characters expressing hope, despair, reassurance, and exhaustion, all with great realism. In all four scenes the light comes from the upper left direction, used by the artist as a spotlight. The light lets you look first at the expressive faces and reaching and clinging arms. The light further creates shadows on the skin, the muscles and the creases of the clothing, which gives each scene extra depth and dynamics. The shadows in turn emphasize the areas exposed to the light and become equally important. I don't know if the artist did this on purpose, but the legs of the men seem to be a bit taller than we may expect them to be. This introduces a little disproportion which adds extra tension to the pictures. For sure, a tremendous amount of observation and artistic skills are necessary to accomplish this.  

A wonderful design that was superbly engraved by Antonio Roca y Sallent.

Women versus men in scripophily

Do men and women really collect differently ?

Collecting is a hobby that we may undertake for several reasons. In the act, we seek for aesthetics or historical appeal. Some of us collect because we enjoy the social interaction with other collectors. We can even try to pursuit profit. Collectors may collect for the reward they receive when acquiring better skills and knowledge. Whatever the reason, both men and women have been collecting for thousands of years. The question is do they collect in a similar way ? That is exactly what we can find out by setting up a scripophily poll on this topic.

Scripophily collecting behavior
This poll is about us, men and women in scripophily, and our particular collecting behavior. So, please participate. The more results we gather, the interesting the outcome. If you know a friend, man or woman, old or young, who is also collecting stocks and bonds, convince him or her to participate as well. If you have a blog, or if you are member of a scripophily association, tell about this poll. Truely, every participation counts.

Poll information :

• You can find the poll below this article. It contains about 20 questions.
• Your answers are anonymously and will be kept that way. 
• The poll will be closed on 30th April 2013. 
• After the closing, I'll do an analysis and present it in a follow-up article. 

Also, I wish to thank the following persons for providing some very interesting questions:

Ursula Kampmann, from CoinsWeekly, and Dagmar Schönig, from the Wertpapierwelt museum.

Have fun ! I will be delighted with every single participation.

F.L.

Update (2013 Sep)
The reviews can be seen here ;

• part 1
• part 2
• part 3 

La Salvadora,

compañia de seguros maritimos, avales y subvenciones

20 Shares of 5000 Reales each

Barcelona, 1857

engraving by Antonio Roca y Sallent

double-click image to enlarge

Poll Results - Age of scripophily collectors

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

Mark Twain

Are there more young people entering our hobby ? How would a scripophily population pyramid look like? These questions were the motivation to do a poll about the age of the collector.

Siemens Elektrische Betriebe Aktiengesellschaft
detail  from lower border, see below

Results of the poll

This was the question : I am a scripophily collector and my age is .. ?

• less than 25 years
• between 25 and 34 years
• between 35 and 44 years
• between 45 and 54 years
• between 55 and 64 years
• between 65 and 74 years
• 75 years or more

Here are the results :

So far, this was the best attended poll with not less than 88 votes. Thank you for your participation !

Are you a junior, medior or senior collector ?

2nd generation of scripophily collectors

I strongly believe that scripophily is meant for both junior, medior and senior collectors. The first scripophily associations were organized somewhere in the mid 1970s by enthousiasts, most of them still young. These juniors were convinced there was a future for sharing their pioneering experiences.

I was a still a child then and ignorant of things like old shares and bonds. But I had a small collection of coins.  I also had a jar filled with used stamps which my grandmother had soaked in cold water. The Internet and email were not invented yet. I was watching Star Trek on a black and white television set.

Now, 30 years later, those pioneering juniors of that first moment, are the seniors of today. Sadly and inevitably some have passed away. In the past couple of years, I also noticed more and more young people start sharing this passion as well. Some seniors will doubt this and claim the opposite.
Well, how does the scripophily population pyramid looks like ?

Poll results - Number of scripophily collectors in the world

"of all human collecting species, the Homo Sapiens Scripophilius, is the hardest to find"

International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (ITT)
Domestic share certificate for less than 100 shares, 1959

Results of the poll

This was the question : How many scripophily collectors are there worldwide ?

• less than 1000
• between 1000 and 2000
• between 2000 and 5000
• between 5000 and 10000
• between 10000 and 20000
• between 20000 and 50000
• between 50000 and 100000
• more than 100000

Only 10 votes were made, including mine. I agree, a low number of votes. But to those who made the effort : thank you for voting !

And here are the results :



As you can see, there is no pronounced winner.
My vote ? Between 20000 and 50000.  Actually, I estimate the number of collectors at 30000. Let me explain why I think so.

What is the number of scripophily collectors in the world ?

The little reflection on the last poll outcome, see here, brought me to the following question :

How many scripophily collectors are there in the world ?

I know some of you are collecting quite isolated without knowing anybody else collecting stocks and bonds. I myself spent my first years of collecting in that manner. Some of you know one or more friends sharing the same passion. Or maybe you are a member of a scripophily, numismatic or ephemera club. The fact is we are not alone, we are numerous.

Poll results - classification of stocks and bonds

Here are the results of the poll about ordering your old stocks and bond certificates.

This was the question :

What is your preferred way of
- searching a sales catalogue ?
- browsing a dealer's album on a bourse ?
- classifying your antique stocks and bonds ?

And here are the results :

The chart shows that 50% of the participants prefer a classification by country, and then by type of activiy.

This poll was set up with the intention to have a little fun and without the ambition of holding an official poll. But it is interesting to make some thoughts about it.  Some sources say that conducting a poll with 1000 persons on a population of 1 million people may result in a representative poll.

I earlier showed this blog had about 600 visitors in the past half year (see here) . There were 14 votes (including mine), which seems an acceptable number.

Anyway, the results did matter to me. I spent an afternoon with rearranging my shares and bond certificates. It was not an obvious thing to do because depending on the date of issue, two shares of the same company may belong to another country.

Thank you for votes !


F.L.

Searching through

I am a collector of early computer manufacturers, so when I go through a sales list or some albums of a dealer, I hope to expect the papers are classified by type of activity. Oops ... "Oh no, they are classified by country", is a common reaction.