Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Uranium from Belgian Congo and more at Boone's 59th Auction

This Saturday, Boone's upcoming sale will take place in Brussels. The auction includes over 1,300 lots of historic bonds and shares and ends with the sale of a phenomenal, you can say epic, collection of Belgian banknotes. The event concludes with an international scripophily bourse on Sunday.

The auction's scripophily section features material from almost 90 countries. Top piece is a 1777 share in the Iron Bridge Trust, regarded by UNESCO as the symbol of the Industrial Revolution. Second highlight in the auction is a 1922 specimen certificate from Union Minière du Haut-Katanga, a star item in any Belgian Congo or world mining collection.




Lot 136 in the auction : Société Union Minière du Haut-Katanga , 1922

Union Minière du Haut-Katanga (UMHK) mined copper, uranium, radium, cobalt, gold and other minerals in Belgian Congo between 1906 and 1966. By the 1930s the company had a virtual monopoly of the world uranium market. The rich uranium ore was refined in UMHK's plant at Olen, Belgium. In the 1940s the Americans purchased tonnes of uranium to be used for their atomic bomb program. During WWII the Nazis captured over 1000 tonnes of uranium stored at Olen. It was recovered by US forces at the end of the war.
click image to enlarge


Mario Boone, 59th Auction and Bourse of Historic Shares and Bonds
Depicted is lot 525, Iron Bridge Trust, 1777.
According to UNESCO, the company marks the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.


A special catalogue has been printed for the sale of a unique collection of Belgian papermoney from as early as 1848 right until the introduction of the euro.



Auction details

  • Location : Brussels
  • Dates :  21 Oct  (Auction) 2017, 22 Oct  (bourse) 
  • Further info : see here 




F.L.

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