Are Stocks and Bonds considered Numismatic items?

YQQ

Big question needs answers.
Please help settle an argument
thank you

Insider2

Depends on whom you ask. While Numismatics is defined along these lines - the study and collecting of coins, medals tokens, and paper money some may consider stocks and bonds outside the definition. However, if I recall "nummus" is Latin for money and checks, stocks and bonds are "monetary instruments." So I vote YES! They are in my numismatic collection.

jmlanzaf

Technically, scripophily.

On a more serious note, it's really the paper money issue. Between federal reserve notes, gold/silver certificates, etc., you've also got things like Treasury Warrants which come dangerously close to being "bearer bonds". So, is a "bearer bond" paper money but other bonds in a different category?

coinpro76

Exonumia or even ephemera depending
I have some Bre-X stock to cash in, I should probably check the ticker on those see how I am doing.

Zoins

According to Wikipedia, collecting stocks and bond certificates are scripophily, a field of numismatics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scripophily

Scripophily is the study and collection of stock and bond certificates. A specialized field of numismatics, scripophily is an area of collecting due to both the inherent beauty of some historical documents as well as the interesting historical context of each document. Some stock certificates are excellent examples of engraving. Occasionally, an old stock certificate will be found that still has value as a stock in a successor company.

BillDugan1959

The title is 'scripophily' and I even have a nice book (lots of good color photographs) somewhere on the subject. Maybe even two books. Books came out fifteen or twenty years ago.

The field is pretty vast, and this means that you can't always tell what the buyers will embrace and what they will consider dross.

DNADave

Today was a good day at the antique stores. I collect coal scrip and this was too good to pass up. It has No. 1 still in the book.

ScripoTime

In case some of you are still interested in Scripophily

https://scripotime.com/

JBK

@ScripoTime said:
In case some of you are still interested in Scripophily

https://scripotime.com/

Instead of making multiple posts trying to send members to your site, how about you discuss the topic on this forum?

sellitstore

Yes, they are. They are exonumia, like medals, which are not money in any sense.

If medals are numismatics, what about sculpture? How about small round metallic sculptures? If they are die struck or created one at a time by hand, does this make a difference? Sometimes these lines are hard to draw and we should be OK with that fact.

Sapyx

I would consider them a fringe aspect of exonumia, which is itself a vague general term for the fringe aspect of numismatics and can include virtually anything that isn't literally a "coin".

I belong to three coin clubs which all have "numismatic society" in their name, so the philosophical discussion around "what is included in the word 'numismatic'" is something these societies have had to grapple with. A working definition of "Numismatics" these societies all seem to have settled on is "the study of coins, and of things related to coins either by monetary purpose, physical appearance, or method of manufacture".

"Monetary purpose" includes things like banknotes, tokens and, by extension, stock certificates. "Physical appearance" would include things like wooden nickels and funny money. "Method of manufacture" would include things like medals and certain kinds of badges.

One could argue that this definition might be a bit too vague and inclusive if interpreted too liberally. Hot Wheels cars, for example, are die-cast and made of metal, so they have essentially the same "method of manufacture" as a cast Chinese cash coin, but no-one would reasonably include toy cars as "Numismatic" on that technical basis. However, this definition does seem to include most things normally classifiable as "exonumia", while being a more practically useful definition than "numismatics is whatever you're pointing at when you say 'that's numismatic'".

Stock certificates have "fringe numismatic" interest, but also "fringe philatelic" interest, due to the tax stamps often affixed to them (as in the example above). I would rate them more numismatic then philatelic, simply because the numismatist is interested in the entire certificate, while the philatelist is mainly interested in just the stamps.

While I own quite a lot of exonumia (mainly thanks to my involvement in the aforementioned coin clubs), I do not own any stock certificates - mainly because they're too big to house in a "normal" banknote album, rather than out of any philosophical objections to including them.