October 11 Scott Winslow Auction

The latest offerings from Scott J. Winslow Associates Inc will take place October 11. This is a mail, phone and live internet auction, meaning you can bid live via eBay. As always, in cases of tie bids, the earliest bid received takes precedence, so I always recommend bidding as early as you can.

This sale is 100% focused on stocks and bonds. The offering includes 847 lots, with 337 representing railroad companies. As usual, Scott will offer gobs of heavy-hitter autographs, with more than 80 lots involving railroad certificates. Among the autographed items are Gould, Harriman, Commodore Vanderbilt and several lots involving J.P. Morgan.

Winslow remains one of the few auction houses which has not hiked his commission structure. Winslow's rate is still 15% of the hammer price. Because of eBay fees, successful online bidders will pay an additional 5%. This should give you additional incentive to bid early.

I also applaud Scott for clearly stating his minimum acceptable bid - "60% of the low estimate." I really don't understand why many other houses find this concept so hard to understand.

I don't have time for a full count, but it looks like 85% to 90% of the lots are illustrated. Be warned that illustrations are in black and white in the catalog, which is one of the ways to control costs in order to keep commission fees affordable.

Contact Scott J. Winslow Associates immediately to receive a copy of the 102 page catalog. You may also see an Acrobat version of the catalog on the web site. Obviously, color images will appear for the online sale. (You must be registered in advance to participate in the live eBay action.)

Mario Boone's "Super Attic Sale", auction 41

I just received the catalog for Mario Boone's sale #41. Boone has been promoting this sale for a couple months and it will finally take place in Antwerp on October 18 and 19. This sale is unusual in that every lot will offer at least a 100 certificates.

True to its name, this is a "Super Attic Sale" that attempts to liquidate over a million stocks and bonds in one sale.

Typical of every Boone sale, certificates from the whole planet are represented. The vast majority of the 846 lots are illustrated. All are shown in color.

Over 12 percent of the entire sale are United States companies and over two-thirds of those are railroad certificates. A quick count shows that the 73 lots of U.S. railroad certificates total 28,598 certificates. Therefore, each lot contains an average of 392 certificates. Lot will generally contain one or two types.

I have already been asked whether this sale will depress prices. In my opinion, such a huge hoard dumped on the market in one sale must surely lower prices. However, I would not want to overstate the case.

First, there are no real surprises in the sale. Most lots contain certificates that are already priced very low in the U.S. For instance, there are 2,890 certificates from the B&O and 1,453 from the Little Miami. The West Shore is represented by 843 certificates which is a drop in the bucket compared to what is out there.

As expected, a vast number of certificates are being recycled from the New York Central hoard. Those very same certificates have been selling in vast numbers for 20 years. I doubt that U.S. prices for many of those certificates will change much at all.

Having said that, I will suggest that we will see the greatest downward effect on prices in Europe. From my perspective, European prices for overly common U.S. certificates have been absurdly high, held high for little reason other than the language barrier. (Not to mention that many beginner sellers refuse to ship to Europe!) As soon as we see certificates from Boone's hoard appear on eBay Germany, prices should get a little more realistic.

The price depression I anticipate will depend, of course, on how disciplined Boone's buyers will be when it comes time to recover their investments. If those purchasers dribble their new inventory out slowly, we won't see a tremendous price decrease. If they dump them out onto eBay every week, prices of selected item will decrease.

Personally, I'm voting for reasonableness. Witness prices for $1000 registered bonds from the West Shore Railroad. They have great eye appeal and prices remain in the $2 to $5 range, even though there are tens of thousands of them out there. What effect will another 381 (in lot #809) have on prices? Probably very little.

Request your catalog from Mario Boone and read more about the sale online.

Spink London Sale Catalog 8027 Out

Spink's latest Bond and Share Certificates of the World catalog (sale #8027) is out should be in the hands of most established bidders by now.

The sale offers 703 lots. 95 lots represent United States collectibles with 24 lots being related to railways. Because of the current weakened state of the dollar, collectors may find it a little hard to get excited about bidding in pound-denominated sales. However, the pain will be greatly lessened if you are willing to bid on multi-item lots. I count 10 multi-item railroad lots and I know from experience that they tend to go for very competitive prices.

If you don't already receive this catalog, make sure you contact Spink right away. The sale takes place in London on September 18.

Unlike the Spink Smythe catalog reviewed a few days ago, this Spink catalog one has many full-color images of individual certificates. I did not count, but it looks like about 15% of all lots are illustrated by full-color individual images. Remaining lots of individual items are fully illustrated online. This format (all lots illustrated online and a good selection illustrated in color in catalogs) is the standard format for European auctions. Because of low U.S. prices, I am not sure sales can fully justify color printing for American sales. However, I fail to see any good reason for not showing all auction lots online, including multi-item lots.

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.)

8th Northern Virginia Stock and Bond Show

The 8th annual Northern Virginia Stock and Bond Show will be Jan. 30 and 31, 2009 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel near Dulles Airport.

I am announcing this show early in case you want to reserve a table for selling certificates.

If you contact show promoter Bob Schell before September 25, you can save 9% to 16% off table rentals, depending on whether you reserve one, two or three tables.

As usual, Bob has negotiated special room rates at Crowne Plaze and there are free shuttles from Dulles.

Contact Bob as soon as possible at:

Bob Schell

P.O. Box 222

St. Germain, WI 54558

rsschell@msn.com

Passing of Ken Holter

Ken's nephew contacted me last week to tell me the sad news that Kenneth Holter had recently passed away in St. Paul. Minnesota. Details are sketchy at this time, but I knew Ken had been hospitalized a couple times in the last two years. He was a very private individual, so I knew little of any conditions he may have endured.

Some of you probably knew Ken through his online sales of railroad stocks and bonds at Scripophily Corner. I am positive that all of my newsletter readers recognize his name as a L-O-N-G-time contributor. After the first edition of my catalog appeared in 1995, Ken immediately became one of my heaviest contributors.

Except when on vacation, Ken contributed certificate images every single day. I just did a quick search and found he had reported over 10,500 pieces of information to the database, primarily serial numbers and images. I imagine he contributed another 1,000 pieces of information before I developed capabilities for recording information sources.

In the last couple of years, Ken contributed many new company names by searching through all sorts of railroad passes, books, timetables, brochures and ephemera he found listed on eBay and elsewhere on the web. Ken was seriously detail-oriented and was always on the lookout for errors in descriptions. Had he not contributed a single bit of other information, his error-checking alone would have proven tremendously valuable.

I will miss Ken's constant presence in my e-mail inbox.

HSK auction planned for August 30

Michael Weingarten just sent notice that Hanseatisches Sammlerkontor für Historische Wertpapiere (HSK) will holds its 26th auction in Hamburg, Germany on August 30.

As always, certificates from North America are well represented. Of the 1,466 lots offered, 170 lots are from American companies. 92 lots are railroad certificates.

To make it easy on English speakers, all HSK lots are described in both German and English. Every lot is illustrated and available online at http://www.hsk-auction.com/