August 21, 2008

New Spink Smythe stock and bond catalog out


Today I received the newest Spink Smythe Bond, Share & Americana Auction. This sale closes on September 9, 2008, so if you want to get a copy of the 116-page catalog, contact Spink Smythe soon.

I counted approximately 579 lots directly related to stocks and bonds. There are another 30 lots of books, newspapers, pamphlets, and peripheral items related to the hobby in greater or lesser degrees.

Of this number, 163 lots are related to railroading. Over half of the rail-related listings are multi-item lots.

As some of you have complained, the paucity of images remains disappointing. Whereas catalogs for Spink's London sales are well-illustrated with photos of many individual certificates, this New York sale catalog has stayed with the practice of illustrating stocks and bonds with overlapping images. While not trying to defend the practice, this might reflect market reality. The cold, hard truth is that prices for collectible stocks and bonds are currently at ten-year (and in many cases 20-year!) lows. Individual illustrations may not be cost-effective. Still, even resorting to partial, overlapped images, there are only 99 photos of certificates.

Hopefully, full images of all lots will be shown when the online catalog becomes available. (The sale is not yet online as of this date.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Has anyone seen the prices realized on this sale yet. I cannot seem to find it - but them again I may be looking in the wrong place or just having a "less than bright" day.

Tim W.

Terry Cox said...

Prices realizes ARE available online. To find them, hold your mouse over the "Auctions" button and a drop-down will appear. Click on "Prices realised." Then choose the appropriate sale.
Unfortunately, Spink is trying to be a little too cute with their cookies, so you may get an error message. You will need to temporarily decrease the security setting on your browser to allow cookies. As soon as you get past the error message, then set your cookie setting back to where it was.