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South Pacific Mining Company Stock Certificate [113894]

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / Stock & Bond - Mining Start Price:60.00 USD Estimated At:120.00 - 200.00 USD
South Pacific Mining Company Stock Certificate  [113894]
SOLD
60.00USD+ (13.20) buyer's premium + applicable fees & taxes.
This item SOLD at 2021 Feb 11 @ 16:26UTC-8 : PST/AKDT
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Located in the old Salt Springs area of Death Valley (Lingenfelter, 1986, Death Valley & the Amargosa, p.158-159). This was one of the biggest mine frauds of the 19th century! No. 6545, issued to EG Johnson for 100 shares in 1883. Signed by the president and secretary. Not cancelled. Ornate black border with an underground mining vignette. Printed by Homer Lee Bank Note Co., N.Y. Pinholes, light wear. Lingenfelter, describes it best: “Early in 1881 Luckhardt (a San Francisco assayer) sold it to James Madison Seymour. Seymour was a slim, dapper operator in his mid-thirties. He had speculated in cotton in Texas and grain in Chicago before coming to New York to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and stage a run of stock manipulations. Together, Luckhardt and Seymour dressed up the old Salt Spring mine until it became the new speculative favorite of Broadway. They bought the mine for $22,500 and gave it the exotic stage name of the South Pacific Mining Company...In the glow of Luckhardt's praises, Seymour put the South Pacific stock on the exchanges in October 1881, and within a month he and his broker friends had ‘washed’ the price up from its $1 par to $14.63 a share! No other mining stock on the New York exchanges had ever been so far above par, and none had ever been more fictitious."

Date: 1883
Country (if not USA):
State: California
City: Death Valley
Provenance: Ken Prag Collection