A pair of excellent Mario Boone auction catalogs just arrived. In my opinion, these are Boone's best yet and he has some wonderfully scarce and desirable certificates inside.

This is Boone's 25th year selling collectible stock and bonds, so all year long he has been offering "Silver Jubilee" specials. That is why he has a three-day sale and two catalogs this time.

Mario offers a hugely diverse selection of 1975 lots from all around the world. Of that number, I count 328 United States lots. My interest, of course, is railroad issues from Panama to the Arctic circle. I count 56 lots in my railroad specialty.

These are not your typical lots of railroad certificates. I see several lots of scarce and rare certificates that are almost never seen.

Perhaps my favorites are two (!) certificates from the Maxwell Land Grant & Railway Company. For the real specialist, there is a Niles & New Lisbon Railway piece with James Fisk's signature. Even collectors with multiple Vanderbilt signatures don't have a Fisk! These only appear every few years.

Speaking of Vanderbilt, Mario is offering a receipt for 2nd mortgage bonds of the Hudson River Railroad signed by "C. Van Derbilt" (aka, the Commodore.) The start price on this item is €4,500. A couple of years ago, I would have said that price was too low. Today, I suspect Mario's start price is fair.

(Yes, I do look at other things! There is a Standard Oil Trust with J.D. Rockefeller's signature. Or how about a Brigham Young autograph as president on a Zion's Mercantile stock? There is also an uncancelled Buffalo Bill Cody signature on a Cody-Dyer Arizona Mining & Milling certificate. And gobs more.)

Among other seldom seen certificates is one that might be overlooked by many collectors. There is one bond from the St Louis & St Joseph Railway which I've never seen one before. Of course, Mario is also offering one of the ever-popular stock certificates of the Harrisburg Portsmouth Mount Joy & Lancaster Rail Road bearing Thomas Scott's signature.

As usual, Mario's two catalogs are heavily illustrated and all in color. Images of ALL lots are available online. In fact, the entire two catalogs are available online at Booneshares.com. The sales will take place March 20-22 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Antwerp, Belgium. European collectors already know to expect "Europe's biggest scripophily bourse" on Sunday.

I want to stress to American collectors that the dollar is currently at a six-year high against the Euro, so you won't be so heavily penalized by foreign exchange rates. And for those of you wondering, but too polite to ask, yes, Boone's catalogs are all in English.

The full auction offering is already online. However, if you want to receive a beautiful printed catalog, e-mail Mario Boone, at Centrum voor Scriptophilie BVBA in Deinze, Belgium, mario.boone@skynet.be.