FASCINATED BY OLD STOCK CERTIFICATES

 

OK, I'll admit it. For some years now, I have been practicing scripophily. And for just as long, I have felt uncomfortable sharing that fact about my life with acquaintances.

To the ears of many people, it sounds like something that should only take place among consenting adults or as an activity that may not be legal in Florida. In any case, it isn't something you routinely see people around you practicing. But I'd like to clear the air and get this matter off my chest.

Although I admit that its most passionate participants are all over 60, scripophily is actually a specialized collector's interest, not an exotic fetish. It is a bit like stamp, coin or currency collecting, but it's focused instead on stock certificates.

Between the 18th and 20th centuries, investors were issued elaborate documents to certify their share of ownership in a company. These documents, called stock certificates, would typically include highly detailed engravings that made them difficult to counterfeit. Those engravings frequently depicted images of corporate mythology – allegorical vignettes of gods and goddesses symbolically representing the issuing company and its industry.

But many of those old certificates, although worthless on the stock exchanges, have now become collectors' items. And in that capacity, their value to collectors is determined by factors such as rarity, condition, signatures, notoriety and so on. Taken together, these certificates offer a unique look at the evolution of various industries as well as an idealized view of their companies' contributions to the economy.

My own collection began almost 50 years ago when I came across a bin in an antique store with stock certificates from a handful of privately owned trolley companies – companies which were eventually absorbed into the Port Authority of Allegheny County, now Pittsburgh Regional Transit. That, in turn, led me into collecting railroad stock certificates. At one time or another, there were approximately 1,700 different passenger and freight rail lines issuing stock to raise capital in the United States alone.

From there, my collecting attention turned in all sorts of quirky directions: automobiles, mines, utilities, Pittsburgh-based companies, financial services and so on. Today, there are more than 600 certificates in my collection.

 

But the elements that catch the eye more than any other have had less to do with their specific industries than with their vignettes. Many depict muscular men and attractive women dressed only in loin cloths – images which, although probably inspired by classical Greek statuary, were almost certainly regarded as risqué by 19th and early 20th century standards.

To read the complete article, see:
Caught in the act of scripophily, he's fascinated by old stock certificates (https://www.post-gazette.com/life/goodness/2024/06/18/scripophily-antique-stock-certificates-peter-longini/stories/202406220001)

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