Fact of the Month

Development of numismatics and birth of scripophily from numismatics.

Many famous people collected coins: Augustus Caesar, Petrarch, several Popes, Lorenzo de Medici, Louis XIV, George III, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Tolstoy, Enrico Caruso and King Farouk. Hence the appellation “Hobby of Kings”. King Victor Emanuel of Italy wrote a 20-volume book on Italian numismatics. Wayne Gretzky, James Earl Jones, and Nicole Kidman are contemporary numismatists.

Joseph Eckhel wrote Doctrina Numorum Veterum the first academic study of ancient coins in an eight-volume work from 1793 to 1799. This established numismatics as an academic subject in Europe. European Universities then established chairs of numismatics. In America there are no university departments of numismatics. The American Numismatic Association grants a diploma in numismatics, but this would only be equivalent to several university credits and is by no means a degree.

Some collectors have an interest in financial history and scripophily certainly fits the bill here. After the American Civil War (1861-1865) people started collecting Confederate States of America (CSA) currency and bonds. They were the first bond collectors. In 1880 Capt. Raphael Thian published Register of Confederate Debt which included lists of CSA bonds. In 1961 Grover Criswell published a book on CSA currency which also listed CSA bonds.

Half a century ago in the 1970s, the number of collectors of securities reached a critical mass, perhaps fostered by an interest in financial history and art. The International Bond and Share Society (IBBS) started in 1978 after the word “scripophily” was coined. Scrip means financial ownership, and philos means love of. The IBSS publishes the magazine Scripophily several times a year.

IBSS lists on their website, scripophily.org, over 40 dealers, 22 auction houses and around 170 books on scripophily. They estimate around 40,000 collectors today. The largest interest is in US and Germany. (Germany is surprising because German stock certificates are typically artistically unappealing.)

Standard and Poor, and Moody have published manuals on US companies. Stock Exchanges have also published yearbooks, directories, and registers of companies now out of business. The Dictionary of American Biography also publishes information about US companies. The internet is rich with information about old companies and financial history. Some companies used to pay professional historians to document their history, but this seems less common these days.

Scripophily attracts those interested in history, especially financial and corporate history, but also government history. Many art nouveau certificates make excellent framed pictures. Scripophily is a hobby, not an investment. Although items create a store of value, future prices are unpredictable.

Scripophily today includes several types of securities: stocks, bonds, promissory notes, indentures, bills of exchange, and other financial paper artifacts. Scripophily can blend into autograph collecting (philography).

Previous Facts

In 1898, the Philippines and Puerto Rico became US possessions after they defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War. But the Philippine economy was too poor to use the US dollar. So, in 1902, Teddy Roosevelt had the Philadelphia and San Francisco mints strike centavos and pesos for use in the Philippines. In 1920, the US reopened the Manila Mint, previously used by the Spanish, and continued striking the coins there. Though the Manila Mint struck coins under US control, technically they came under the Bureau of Insular Affairs, rather than the Bureau of the Mint. In 1935, the US changed the Philippines to a Commonwealth as a 10-year stepping stone to independence.

But in 1941, the Japanese invaded the Philippines. Three years later, the US liberated the Philippines, during which the Manila Mint was destroyed. The Philippines became independent in 1946.

The Manila Mint