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Auction: SW1008 - Bonds and Share Certificates of the World
Lot: 224

Keyserlich Indische Compagnie. Option Certificate for 6 shares, Antwerp 28. April 1730. Nr. 7. The Buyer of the certificate is entitled to buy six shares of the Company for 25 percent until 6. August 1730. One of the oldest existing option certificates. Text in Flamish. VF. Certificates of the Keyserlich Indische Compagnie and the Société du Commerce d’Asie & d’Afrique & Compagnie, printed on watermarked paper, written and signed by hand are important historic financial documents documenting Habsburg role in East-India trade. After the War of Spanish Succession (1712), what was left of the Spanish Netherlands was ceded from Spain to Austria. Freed from Spanish rule, private merchants from Ostend started to sail to trade with Mocha, India, Bengal and China in 1715. These expeditions were financed by different international syndicates composed of Flemish, English, Dutch and French merchants and bankers. They also found support from Austrian ruler Karl VI, Holy Roman Emperor, who was keen to develop his towns in the Austrian Nederland into a base for the Habsburg oversea trade and to compete with the highly profitable British, Dutch and French East India Companies.

Estimate
SFr1,000 to SFr1,500