Description

The company was formed to acquire the printing business of Henri Diez, situated at Molenbeek-Saint-Jean (Belgium). The new company was to do all printing, including typo- and chromo-typography, lithography, engraving, heliogravure, photo-typing and -gravure, all colour-printing, and book-binding. The company had contracts to publish directories and yearbooks in Paris, England, and German-speaking countries; the tariffs of the Belgian railways and much else.

One of the rights obtained by the company was for the Orloff system of electro-chromo-heliographic printing in Belgium. Initial shares in the company were printed by state security printers in St. Petersburg, using the Orloff system. The similarities to Russian bonds, printed at the same plant, are obvious. The shares have an underprint of a large and complex Marinoni printing-press, and a vignette of Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press.