FHW presents unique stocks and bonds from the Austro-Hungarian Empire

FHW's upcoming auction takes place on February 26, 2022 in Wolfenbüttel, Germany. The town is home to both the world-famous Jägermeister distillery and the headquarters of the Freunde Historischer Wertpapiere.  

The sale includes 1910 lots of scripophily: antique share certificates and bonds from all continents will go under the hammer. Large sections include the Austro-Hungarian Empire, USA, Germany pre 1945, Germany DM era, Russia and the Baltic States, and China.

The Zillertal Railway is one of the most popular attractions in Tyrol. Its line opened in 1902 and runs along the Ziller river between Jenbach and Mayrhofen. Tourists and railway enthusiasts from all over the world enjoy a ride with the company's steam operated trains. This founder share, issued in 1903, designed in lovely Art Nouveau style, features vignettes from Jenbach, Zell am Ziller and Fügen. L(ot) 497 in the auction, Zillerthalbahn AG, starts at €1,500

The k. u. k. Doppelmonarchie, aka the Austro-Hungarian Empire, existed between 1867 and 1918. The "kaiserlich und königlich" refers to "imperial (Austria)" and "royal (Hungary)".  The state comprised Austria, Hungary and parts of todays Italy, Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland and Ukrain. As such it was the second-largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire at over 620,000 km2. 

The sale features 350 k.u.k. lots including a lovely Zillerthalbahn share, image shown above. Some more examples from other Austro-Hungarian certificates are:

• Actiengesellschaft der Liesinger Bräuerei, share from 1872, wide vignette of the brewery buildings, L153. 
• Several hotel companies are included in the the k.u.k. section such as 
• L164, Actien-Gesellschaft Hotel Goldenes Lamm, 1872, lodgings vignette in the underprint 
• US President Theodore Roosevelt once stayed in the Hotel Krantz, L272 and L273
• The luxury Grandhotel Pupp is located in Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad), Czech Republic, and can be admired in the movies Last Holiday, starring Queen Latifah, and Casino Royale, with James Bond. L274 
• Railway collectors will appreciate the tens of railway companies that are included in this section. Some examples are: 
• Grazer Tramway-Gesellschaft, L264, 
• Innsbrucker Mittelgebirgsbahn, L279, and, 
• one of the highlights in the auction, L310, K. K. Priv. Prager Eisenbahngesellschaft, Prague, share from 1828, one of the oldest railway companies in continental Europe.

Included in the Austro-Hungarian section is this Spar- und Kredit-Verein des Janus share. This bank was formed by the Janus wechselseitige Lebensversicherung-Anstalt, a mutual life insurance business, to provide financial services to its members. The amazing vignette shows a portrait of Janus with the two faces. This Roman god controlled the beginning and ending of conflicts. The certificate, issued in 1914, was produced by M. Salzer, one of the oldest printing companies of Austria. Matthäus Salzer (1799-1878) expanded the printing works of the Salzer family into a factory. He bought in 1866 the Carl Ueberreuter printing house. L430 in the auction starts at €200 

The auction includes two German scripophily sections presented by more than 400 lots : 

1. Germany before 1945, lot range 1142 through 1429, and 
2. Germany after 1945 'DM era', range 1430 - 1620. 
3. On top of that you can add the "50% vom letzten Ausruf" section, range 695 - 1141, which contains many German items unsold in previous auctions but now listed at 50% of the original start price.

The printed (PDF) catalog contains indexes on themes and German regions. The online sites provide key word search functions. I tried the word Magdeburg and found more than twenty lots such as L943, a rare 200 Thaler share from 1872 in the Magdeburger Brückebau-Anstalt in Buckau bei Magdeburg with corner vignettes of bridges.

Vignettes on antique securities often display smoking chimneys alluding to productivity and profitability. Being a child of its time, this specimen share from the MEMBRAN Aktiengesellschaft für Finanzinformationssysteme delivers the same message by means of a then expensive desktop computer system with two diskette disk drives. Issued in 1987, Berlin, L1558 is part of the 200 lots counting DM era section.

In its auctions FHW features top American items, especially scripophily from railroad companies. This time the USA section includes about 300 lots.  Some examples are : 

• a rare Colorado Northern Railway Company share, L1698, with vignette of a train exiting a tunnel, starts at €500
• Civil War Major General Grenville Mellen Dodge who later became the Union Pacific's chief engineer signed the Denver, Texas and Forth Worth Railroad bond, rare, L1711
• L1769, Chicago and Oak Park Elevated Railroad Company, stock certificate from 1908, great vignette of steam train on elevated track

From the USA section, this share in The Defender Gold Mining Company not only looks spectacular but tells a surprising story as well. Incorporated in Colorado the company prospected in the Cripple Creek gold district. It was founded in 1895 when the American sloop Defender defeated its British challenger, the Valkyrie III, in the America's Cup race. The share shows the winner, the "Auld Mug" trophy, shipping ropes and the company name, all of them in gold-print. L1706 in the sale 

There is a lot to discover in the auction, so here are the details :

• Date : 26 February, 2022
• Further info, see here; PDF catalog see there; live bidding is possible through https://connect.invaluable.com/dwa/  

F.L.

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Use alternative search terms when searching digital publications

When you want to find something specific online, you key in a search term in the input field of a search engine such as Google. A search term can be a single word or a combination of words, e.g. “railway” or “railway company”. However, to get want you want, you may need to take an extra step.

The vignette shown here appears on a bond from The Utica and Black River Railroad Company. It is wide and gorgious, you can click the image to admire the scene in detail. 

The railroad's line originally ran from Utica, N.Y., to Philadelphia, N.Y. (Manual of the railroads of the United States 1874). 

The bond is illustrated below. According to coxrail.com its Frequency of Appearance is F1, which means this certificate "usually appears more than 10 times per year" on the collectors' market. Note that Cox's Frequency of Appearance system does not tell you anything about the value of a particular railroad stock or bond. You can find out more about this system here. 

The Utica and Black River Railroad Company, $1000 First Mortgage 4% Gold Bond Guaranteed, 1890, Cox catalog nr UTI‑125‑B‑50 

I tried to identify the signature of the person who signed the bond as President of the railroad. Sometimes that person turns out to be an important railroad entrepreneur, a philanthropist, or even a civil war veteran.  

An interesting source for researching railroad officials is The Biographical Directory of the Railway Officials of America. The 1885 edition, edited by E. H. Talbott and H. R. Hobart and pubished by The Railway Age Publishing Company, lists nearly 4000 names of :

• Presidents and vice-presidents
• general and assistant general managers
• general, assistant, and division superintendents
• general and assistant general freight agents
• general and assistant general passenger and ticket agents
• chief engineers
• general agents, and 
• other officers.

The 1885 edition of the book is available online. You can consult it here on archive.org. A PDF version can be downloaded there. 

The archive.org site provides a search function when the book is read online. I then keyed in the word combination "Black River", a snippet from The Utica and Black River RailRoad Company name. 

This yielded the following results that referred to the full company name :

• B. H. Bail, General Freight Agent in 1883 to date [1885, the book's publication date] 
• Edgar A. Van Horne, General Superintendent in 1883 to date
• Albert Wilber, resident engineer in 1875

Interesting, but not what I was looking for. Though all of these were officials from our railroad, none of the names seem to match the signature.

Next I put in an alternative keyword : "Utica".

Now I got these outcomes :

• B. H. Bail, General Freight Agent in 1883 to date
• Theodore Butterfield, General Freight and Passenger Agent, Utica, N.Y.
• J. F. Maynard, Vice-President and General Manager, Utica, N.Y. 
• John Thorn, Director 1859, President 1859 to date 

Aha ! Got Ya. The signature present was the one from J. F. Maynard. 

Why the different results ? 

The reason is that the automatic process of converting old books in print to a computer-readable format is not error free: letter 'l' can be misread for number '1', sometimes a letter is worn off, etc. This illustrates my point: use alternative search terms to get the most out of your digital research activities. 

By the way, you can find the 1887 edition of the book here, and the 1893 edition there. Perhaps there are more editions available online.

I could have ended my post here, but there is something extra about this bond certificate that I wanted to share. The thing is, the certificate features two different embossed company seals, both hardly visible. 

The first seal was embossed on the guilloche figure that was printed in the lower left corner of the bond. You can see it much better when you inspect the reverse of the certificate. However, on the reverse you see a mirrored image, see the left image above. 

Luckily, the GNU Image Manipulation Program software allows me to rotate and mirror the image once more so it becomes readable (right image above). The seal depicts a locomotive and reads: 

THE UTICA AND BLACK RIVER RAILROAD COMPANY 

UTICA, N. Y. 

Then there is a second embossed seal, also difficult to detect. It is located on top of the "U" initial of the company title (top left corner). Also in this case we check the reverse of the certificate. It reads : 

ROME, WATERTOWN & OGDENSBURG

RAIL ROAD COMPANY

STATE OF NEW YORK

CONSOLIDATED 1885

The seal was embossed upon this printed text:

For Value Received, The Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg Railroad Company hereby guarantees the punctual payment of the principal and interest of the within Bond according to the terms, tenor and effect thereof.

Since 1886 the Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg RR started leasing the lines of the Utica and Black River RR. Both had been under one management since then. The former thus assured the bond buyer that he would see his money back in the end.  

F.L.

Previous posts 

• The most valuable scripophily item hammered in 2020 
• Shall we take the car, the plane, or the boat ? 

Collectibles from the undersea world and other rarities emerge in Boone's scripophily auction

The 66th auction of Mario Boone takes place online with an exceptional wide range of scripophily collectibles. More than 1,100 antique stocks and bonds span 4 centuries of financial history.

The sale includes several historic items and a number of old collections have been consigned for this occasion. Very special, and unseen before, is a scripophily collection of the undersea world. The companies represented here had goals that captured our imagination. Their shares often featured fantastic vignettes.

During the American Civil War hundreds of ships  were destroyed. This share from the Life Saving Raft Company, was issued in 1866 just after the war. The amazing vignette shows the company's life raft with shipwrecked sailors. Early lithograph produced by Henry Seibert and Brothers, New York, and part of the Diving/Submarines collection 

The Diving/Submarines collection consists of about 90 certificates from companies involved in diving operations, the ship wreck salvage business, underwater treasure hunting, production of submarines, insurance of maritime losses, diving and life saving equipment and maritime archaeology. The collection, L(ot) 1051, offered as a whole, starts at €4,000. In case no bid is received, it will be offered again in smaller lots. 

I'll come back to the other collections consigned for this sale but let me discuss first some of the top items in the sale.

One of the highlights in the auction is this previously unseen share from 1747. Formed in 1720 the Compañia Real de la Havana organized the trade between Spain and Cuba. The company controlled the export of tobacco, sugar, wood and other Cuban products but also slaves, as well as all import of European products needed in the colony. L771 in the auction starts at €5,000. Detailed image provided on the auctioneers Invaluable.com portal, see link below.

Here are some more lovely items from the Spanish chapter in the sale :

• L772, an early copper engraving on vellum, boundless vignette all over the design, is a share from the Real Compañia de Comercio Establicida en Barcelona, dated around 1748 but unissued which explains the moderate start price of €400! 
• Printed with a "gold" vignette of a mining operation, the San Juan Bautista (Teruel) silvermine share, 1857, belonged to the Duke of Rianzares, second husband of Queen Maria Cristina de Borbon, L775 
• A great example of Art Nouveau design, L782, a share in the Nueva Plaza de Toros, shows off the bullring of Barcelona

Let's jump to the present. Everyone knows how to download a PDF auction catalog and read it with the Acrobat Reader application. Both PDF and Acrobat Reader were developed by Adobe Systems. The company was founded in 1982 by ex-Xerox PARC employees John Warnock and Charles Geschke. This specimen stock certificate bears the facsimile of Charles M. Geschke. In 1992 he was kidnapped from Adobe's parking lot. Four days later the FBI found and saved Geschke. L1043, a very interesting collectible from the software industry, starts at €50 

Regarding American scripophily there is lots more to find. This auction chapter includes a top collection of ninety early USA (1816-1860) certificates, lot range 884 through 976. A few examples :

• L886, Thomaston Coal and Mineral Company, 1819!, then part of Massachusetts, today Maine
• L910, Philadelphia Museum Company, previously Peale's American Museum, share from 1840
• L943, West End Land Association, 1854, vignettes of villa and native Americans

The American 'regular' section, lot range 977-1044, has some more surprises, so don't forget that part. 

The Russian chapter consists of nearly 100 lots and kicks off with another highlight :  L678, a share in the Warsaw-Vienna Railway Company. In 1814 Alexander I of Russia was made king of Poland at the Congress of Vienna. His succesor Nicholas I approved the construction of the Warsaw-Vienna Railway. Its 1839, unissued, share shows the vignette of the Russian imperial double-headed eagle. Besides tsarist era scripophily, the chapter includes several soviet certificates as well.

The Azoff Steam Ship Company, founded in 1871, serviced the harbors at the Sea of Azov and the River Don. In the Soviet period the company became an asset of the Ministry of the Maritime Fleet (Minmorflot). This 1895 specimen share was printed by Typography Brothers Schumacher. The printing house finds its origins in the 18th century print shop of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The shop was founded by Johann Daniel Schumacher, secretary of the academy and librarian to the Tsar, and his brother Johann-Jacob, professor of architecture at the St-Petersburg university. L691 

Here is an overview of the other collections that will go on the block in this auction : 

• L5, Collection of 16 Red Cross certificates
• L187, Collection of 46 Austrian World War I bonds 
• L321, Collection of 84 royal loans of France under the form of life rentes (cfr. the catalogue France, The Royal Loans by Howard Shakespeare), period 1689-1787 
• L322-333, Corsica collection
• Lot 625-677: Rolf Büchsenschütz collection of Romania (part)
• L1080-1117, Fire fighting collection

The printed catalog contains several indexes to help you find what you are looking for.  The online versions can be searched by keywords. 

At the start of the 20th century, Ghent, Ypres, Bruges and other Flemish cities still counted many female lace workers. During WWI, war lace was bought by soldiers as a gift for the home front in England or America. This handicraft would disappear, partly because in the Congo, then a Belgian colony, nuns taught lace-making techniques in the missions. The Congolese women and children produced large quantities of lace at very low wages. De Vrouwelijke Beroepsbonden, in English: The Women's Occupational Unions, was a cooperative from Ghent founded in 1914. This unissued share shows vignettes of a lace worker and two seamstresses. Printed by Litho. F. & R. Buyck Frères. L229 

It is impossible to mention all items in this sale, but there is a way to find out more about them. Here are the auction details :

• Location : Internet only
• Date : 10 April 2021
• Further info : 
• online catalog & bidding here, 
• or via the Invaluable platform (large images), 
• PDF version of the catalog there 

F.L.

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Digest of scripophily readings XVIII

New online scripophily articles and references, February 2016

EDHAC's eMuseum adds a virtual collection of ICT related stocks and bonds

In 2014, EDHAC, 'GERMANY'S FIRST SOCIETY FOR HISTORIC SECURITIES', started a cooperation with EDHAM, 'GERMANY'S FIRST MUSEUM FOR HISTORIC SECURITIES', to setup an online scripophily museum. Lately, a third collection of 60 ICT related stocks and bonds has been put on virtual display. 

Related links (in German):

• eWertpapierMuseum 
• EDHAC 

Does it make sense to set reserves?

Under certain conditions, auction consignors can set the minimum amount the auction house will accept as the winning bid on a lot. This is called a reserve, or a protective bid. Stephen Goldsmith gives us some tips here.

The most historic one ?

Otto Vervaart from the Netherlands blogs about legal history. In this article Otto hunts for the oldest companies.

Images now consume 10 times more display area

Recently Terry Cox announced his new North American coal mining database on his blog. In the same message, he also reported that 

Almost 2/3 of the previous images were enlarged. The larger images are now up to 640 pixels wide which works out to about 6.7 inches wide on average monitors. Most images now consume 10 times more display area..

This applies to images from both his US coal mining and railroad database. I've added links to these image databases on the Online Collections page.

Montrose Railway Company
Stock certificate for 4 Shares of $50, 1871
Cox MON-991-S-50

Perrier Founder's share so far unique

Almost 1 billion bottles of Perrier are sold each year. This luxury water is sold in 140 countries. Hans-Georg Glasemann reports on the early Perrier company and its emerged founder's share, see here. in German 


That's all folks !

F.L.

Archives International Auctions - Fall Auction 2014

Archives International Auctions Part XXI
US & Worldwide Banknotes, Coins, Scripophily,
Autographs & Security Printing Ephemera

Specimen share certificate from Microsoft

Facsimile signature William Henry "Bill" Gates

-

Microsoft, the most famous software company, is also involved in the

design and development of computer hardware such as the MSX home computer architecture, 

MSN Web Companions, the pen-enabled Tablet PC, the Pocket PC specification, 

the XBox game console and the Microsoft Surface tablet computer.

• Date & Place  : 25 October 2014 at the Museum of American Finance, NYC, and 4 November 2014 at AIA, Fort Lee, NJ
• Further info : see here 

Tip !

The first part of the auction is to be held in conjunction with the Wall Street Coin, Currency and Collectibles Show, being held October 23-25, 2014 at the Museum of American Finance ( 48 Wall Street, NYC )

F.L.