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Auction: SW1012 - Bonds & Shares Certificates of the World
Lot: 45

Roulette de Monte Carlo. 20% Obligation F 500 au Porteur. Paris, 1 Novembre 1924, Nr. 12. This certificate is one of the colour reproductions of No. 12 made for inclusion in "The Box in a Valise" by Arturo Schwarz in 1941. With printed signature of Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), probably one of the most important artist of the 20th century. He founded the company in November 1924 to finance his new passion for Roulette and his project to break the bank of the Casino in Monte Carlo. Duchamp issued 30 of these Bonds of F 50 and promised subscribers a dividend of 20 percent on all his gains. The illustration shows the well-known Man Ray photograph of Duchamp covered in shaving cream and horns. Duchamp signed as Un Administrateur and Rrose Sélavy (his transvestite alter ego) as Président du Conseil d’Administration. The Dadaistic pun "domestic mosquitos half stock" is repeated continuously in the underprint. Only a handful of the original bonds survived. (One of them sold in New York in 2010 for $ 1.1 Million, making it the most valued scripophily to-date). EF.

Sold for
SFr28,000