Specialized German dictionary
for certificate descriptions

Online translators

I have always recommended American collectors shop with German, Swiss, and Belgian auction houses and dealers. Although minimum bid prices tends to be high by American standards, European catalogs are always excellent and their selections often include hard-to-find certificates. U.S. collectors should understand that some "must-have" certificates appear for sale only in Europe. It therefore behooves advanced collectors to follow European sales.

Thankfully, language translation and currency conversion is easier than ever before

Most European dealers converse in English. Feel free to write them in English. Mario Boone's catalogs are published in English. Most other catalogs are written in German and some have English translations right onsite. For those catalogs that are not translated, translation software makes it easier than ever before to read German catalogs without tremendous struggle.

The best and free translation software is probably Google Translate. Most auction and sale catalogs are online, so simply copy text from catalogs, paste it into Google Translate, and click on "Translate".

The German to English translation will never be perfect, but it is quite acceptable and getting better all the time.

You will discover that the stock and bond hobby has its own specialized language. Tanslation software often stumbles on scripophily jargon. Below is a short dictionary of some of the most common terms you will encounter in certificate descriptions.

The operating rules of German

English tends to combine words with hyphens. German usually creates new words by welding several words together. For instance, Güterwagendepot means freight depot. English speakers can make more sense of this 15-letter word if they separate it into Güter wagen depot.

German compound words often baffle translation software. You will encounter that problem, so simply guess how to break words into component parts and re-translate. For instance, if software fails to translate Nachfolgegesellschaft, break the word into Nachfolge gesellschaft and try again. If one break does not work, try two breaks and then three. Like English, the more you break apart German compound words, the further meanings will migrate from their intended use.

German capitalization

German capitalizes nouns in the middle of sentences like English once did.