Collectors in the paper money hobby recognize scrip as unofficial money.

Collectors in the stock and bond hobby recognize scrip as several different kinds of collectibles.

Confused? You should be. "Scrip" meant different things to different companies.

Scrip falls into five categories:

	partial shares of stock, or a receipt for money redeemable as stock (included in catalog)
	partial amounts of bonds, or a receipt for money redeemable as bonds (included in catalog)
	unofficial paper money (NOT included in this catalog)
	currency-sized tickets (NOT included in this catalog)
	checks issued in place of dividends, often redeemable in stocks or bonds (included in this catalog only when they DIRECTLY MENTION stock or bond ownership)

Obsolete currency causes the greatest confusion.

Scrip that was printed and circulated as paper money causes a huge number of questions.

Here is a good rule of thumb.

If a certificate LOOKS like currency, it was almost certainly printed to circulate as currency and therefore out of the scope of this catalog.

Obsolete currency from the Philadelphia Newtown & New York Railroad Co. Items like this are NOT included in the database.

Most obsolete currency was printed before 1863. Railroad companies often printed certificates to resemble currency so they would circulate, thereby giving hard-to-find cash to the companies. They purposely (and deceptively) worded their currency to imply ownership similar to bonds. Some currency even promised to pay interest upon redemption within 6 months to two years.

I do not include obsolete railroad currency in my catalog for these reasons:

	I firmly believe obsolete railroad currency was printed and issued strictly as paper money. I believe that some currency was purposely titled as "bonds" to fit through legal loopholes that legislated which businesses could legally issue paper money.
	I cannot find a single piece of railroad currency that guaranteed repayment. Railroad companies never offered contracts to people who held their currency. No contract -- no bond!
	Obsolete railroad currency was already well-known and well-cataloged in the paper money hobby before I started this project in the late 1980s. The paper money hobby substantially predates the stock and bond hobby.
	Auction houses and curreny dealers normally sell obsolete currency as part of the paper money hobby. Researching and tracking prices of obsolete currency would be overly burdensome. I do not have the time.

Railroad "Bond" currency. Here are examples of railroad currency that cause serious confusion. No matter how you try to stretch the definition, none of these kinds of items constituted real "bonds."

Obsolete currency from The Scioto & Hocking Valley Railroad Co. and the Columbus & Lake Erie Railroad. I DO NOT catalog items like this.

Were these items really railroad "bonds?"

No, not in my opinion.

You are free to disagree. However, I have never discovered any evidence that would classify these items as true bonds. Here's why.

Strictly speaking, a "bond" is a binding agreement between two or more parties. One party (the investor) agrees to give money to the other party (the company). In return, the company "promises" to repay the investor with interest.

However, promises, by themselves, are not "guarantees."

The lack of guarantee is the real measure of whether these pieces of paper money were actually bonds. None of these items tell what would happen if companies defaulted.

With true bonds, investors who loaned money to companies normally were first in line in case of default. True bonds display specific contractual obligations between companies and investors. Bondholders could -- and did! -- demand that companies be liquidated when troubled companies defaulted on their loan payments.

In other words, investors were protected from loss, to some degree, by the text on the face of legal bonds. That text formed a legal contract.

Even if a piece of paper money was labeled as a "bond", I do not see anything that remotely implies a contract existed between company and bearer.

Without a contract, no binding agreement -- or bond-- exists between company and bearer.

Instead, I consider these and similar items as promissory notes.

If you are interested in collecting railroad-related currency, then please search the web for dealers in "obsolete currency." It is a large area of specialty collecting. Collecting obsolete railroad currency is challenging, fascinating, and fun.