1043 Halcyon Days

After church this morning I was talking to Lori who is teaching knitting to the children of Highland School where many of our members, including my husband, volunteer. She was excited about what she is learning about teaching knitting, so I said I wished she had an adult class. She was waiting for a live one, because within 2 minutes we'd arranged for her to come to my house Thursday morning at 8 a.m. to teach me to knit!

When I got home I remembered I had an old knitting/crochet guide book that had belonged to my Mother, and I thought I'd scan the cover to use with the story I'd planned to do about Lori teaching me to knit (later in the week). In the hunt for the book, which I haven't found, I came across a plastic bag of paper memorabilia I must have brought home after Mother's funeral in 2000. It contained things like a poetry book she'd created in high school, the 1933 Century of Progress guidebook, a dear post card in child script from her brother Clare (died in WWII) from Winona Lake, IN, and two score cards for the Chicago Cubs for 1934, which were probably picked up during my parents' very brief honeymoon. The odd piece of paper was a stock certificate for 300 shares of the Halcyon Mining Company of South Dakota. At $1.00 per share that had set my Dad back $300 ($4,000 in today's money) at a time when they had two toddlers and were in the midst of the Depression.

I called my brother, who is a stockbroker and who ably handled my father's investments in his later years, and asked if he had any recollction of this or why Dad would have taken such risks. He wasn't familiar with event, but speculated it might have been a salesman passing through town with the lure of quick riches. I'm sure the company went belly up, and it doesn't take much imagination to recreate my parents' discussion of the use of their very limited funds (assuming my Mother even knew about it). I think Dad hung on to it as a reminder--because I have a dim memory of his showing it to me many years ago.

Old stock certificates are collectibles even if the stock itself is worthless. This hobby is called "scripophily" and is related to stamp collecting. "Scripophily, the collecting of canceled old stocks and bonds, gained recognition as a hobby around the mid-1970s. The word resulted combining words from English and Greek. The word "scrip" represents an ownership right and the word "philos" means to love. Today there are thousands of collectors worldwide in search of scarce, rare, and popular stocks and bonds. Collectors who come from a variety of businesses enjoy this as a hobby, although there are many who consider scripophily a good investment. In fact, over the past several years, this hobby has exploded. Dot com companies and scandals have been particularly popular." (Wikepedia)

Here's a site that sells gold and silver mining stock certificates, and you can see for yourself how interesting and artistic they are. I did find a Halcyon certificate on the Internet selling for about $45 in one offer. My husband has matted and framed it for me so we'll keep it around as a reminder that things aren't always as good as they seem in the heat of a sales pitch.


Halcyon Mining Company