Museums Victoria deliver engaging online experience

The Museums Victoria (MV) manages the Melbourne Museum, the Immigration Museum, Scienceworks and Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building. Its history goes back to the founding of the National Museum of Victoria in 1854.

Today, MV is home to over 17 million historic artefacts and science objects and welcomes more than 2 million visitors per year. Its MV Collections site gives virtual visitors a fresh and adequate experience by means of modern Internet techniques.

Company seal of The Federal Bank of Australia Limited, detail from the certificate below 

image attribution : Museums Victoria, https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/1114702 

The many MV collections relate to geology, palaeontology, zoology, and, social, indigenous, cultural, economic and technological history. Its Trade Literature Collection contains over 60,000 business brochures, advertisements, product catalogues and the like. The Numismatics & Philately Collection comprises thousands of coins, paper money, medals, stamps and some scripophily as well.

A considerable part of its records, more than 1 million, together with 150 000 images, has been digitized and put available online on the Museums Victoria Collections site. Here's is one of the listed share certificates, indicated as item 1114702.

This share certificate in The Federal Bank of Australia Limited , printed by Sands & McDougall, Melbourne, was issued in 1887. Established in 1881 this bank started to issue its own banknotes in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide. A speculative boom in Australian real estate led to the Australian banking crisis of 1893 and the bank was forced to close down.

image attribution : Museums Victoria, https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/1114702

On MV's 'item 1114702' page, see THERE, you can see the image as shown here. But there is more. The page gives you a summary and a description of what you see. And, just as if you were attending a guided tour, an explanation is given on the significance of the displayed item.

The overview concludes with a list of clickable keywords letting you discover more about the related collection, collecting areas and classifications, people, places, dates, articles and images, possibly of other scripophily. Wow! It is from functionality like this where this site's added value comes from. For free, and a few mouse-clicks away.


F.L.

Related links

• Museums Victoria - Australia's largest public museum organisation 
• Museums Victoria Collections 
• MV's search page 

NB: More Australia related posts ? Check these   

Puzzling scripophily - No. 2

Dear Miss Marple and M. Hercule Poirot,

We are looking for a particular company. The following three visual clues will help you solve this puzzle. These are details from one of the company's share certificates.

• How to take part ? Submit your replies in the comments section of this post, or in any other way.

• What's in it for you ? The first correct answer yields eternal fame.  

• When will the solution be revealed ? Check this particular blog post.

That's all I can say for the moment. 

Yours truly 

F.L.

AIA's forthcoming numismatic auction to feature rare American railways

Spread over three sessions, Archives International Auctions 56th Sale features over 1000 lots of  banknotes, coins, security printing ephemera, historic documents and autographs. About 400 lots of U.S., Chinese & worldwide scripophily are included. 

The auction features part two of the Stephen Beck Collection of CSX predecessor companies. Included are dozens of rare and stunning stocks and bonds.

The Florida Southern Railroad Company, Main Line 6% Gold Bond of  $1000, 1892, specimen

The FSR, formerly known as the Florida Southern Railway, was developed by railway and hotel entrepreneur Henry Bradley Plant. Part of the Stephen Beck Collection, lot 696 in the sale, and extremely rare

This AIA sale further contains great securities from the American Bank Note Archives. A rich mix of international stocks and bonds represent countries like Bolivia, Canada, China, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Israel, Mexico, Russia, United Kingdom et cetera.

This Banco de Colombia specimen bond dates from the early 1900s. Its vignette shows the Landing of Columbus, a painting from the American John Vanderlyn. The work, showing Columbus and his crew claiming land on San Salvador Island (Bahamas), can be admired in the central rotunda of the United States Capital in Washington, D.C. Lot 212 in the sale, a finding from the ABN archives.

Here are the sale's details, so you can discover much more for yourself :

• Location : River Edge, New Jersey
• Date : Nov 21, 2019
• Further info : see here, AIA's online catalogue with full color images, here, and PDF version there 

F.L.