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Original 1908 Round Mountain Mining Co. Stock Certificate Book, NV - Round Mountain,Nye County

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Documents Start Price:500.00 USD Estimated At:1,000.00 - 2,000.00 USD
Original 1908 Round Mountain Mining Co. Stock Certificate Book, NV - Round Mountain,Nye County
IMPORTANT NOTE ON BUYERS PREMIUMS:

Lot 100 to 343 have a premium of 15%.

The rest of the sale is 19.5% as noted in the listing.

Lot Pick Up: Holabird-Kagin Americana,
3555 Airway Drive Ste #309,
Reno NV 89511,
Sunday - December 9, 10am-4pm
1908 - Original 1908 stock certificate book, measuring 14" x 6.25" x 2.25", containing almost 250 certificates, numbers 1501-1749. Round Mountain Mining Company Stocks of Round Mountain, Nevada. Vignette: mining scenes at top right, top left, and center. The company was incorporated Under the Laws of Nevada on 28 March 1906 and held its Principal Place of Business in Goldfield, Nevada. These stocks are signed by infamous mining promoter J. P. Loftus, J. P. Sweeney, and a few are signed by J. R. Davis. About 10 certs are issued to Thomas Keane, with others signed to various other business owners and citizens of the time. In April 1909, J. P. Sweeney and L. D. Gordon tried to oust J. P. Loftus and J. R. Davis as directors of the company by circulating a letter charging incompetence and asking for the controlling vote. Davis came back at Sweeney and his alleged misstatements in a circular letter, and in the annual meeting Loftus and Davis won out and Sweeney was no longer a director [Ref: A History of the Tonopah Area and Adjacent Region of Central Nevada, 1827-1941, p. 67]. Davis, a well-educated prospector in Arizona, California, Oregon and Alaska, and Loftus, a New York native, were involved in several mining operations including the Sandstorm and Round Mountain Mining Companies in Goldfield, the Great Bend Mining Company near Diamondfield, and the Gold Bar Mine in the Bullfrog District [Ref: www.legendsofamerica.com]. The two were also later involved in the notorious "Gold Bar Swindle"--a scheme in which the pair claimed the Gold Bar mine was a high-grade mine whereas in fact it was low-grade. Something was definitely wrong with the Bullfrog Gold Bar Mining Company, and had been wrong for some time. On May 6th, all suspicions were confirmed, when a large New York brokerage firm announced that the recent decline of the Gold Bar stock was due to a western bank giving instruction to sell a large block of Gold Bar regardless of the market price conditions. Someone obviously knew that the Gold Bar was about to fail. Three weeks later, the Rhyolite Herald reported that over 200,000 shares of the company`s stock had been sold and the dumping continued. In the meantime, the two principal controllers of the Gold Bar, J.P. Loftus and James R. Davis, left for a two-month vacation in Europe, announcing that they would take a look at the problems upon their return. Its superintendent, L.E. Bedford, had quietly resigned on March 21st, which looked strange at a time when the Gold Bar was finally beginning to produce. It is impossible to determine how much ore was ever taken out of the ground, since the majority of the available figures are those which were released to the press by the company itself. Two things, though, are abundantly clear: the private stockholders of the Gold Bar Company never made any money at all, and Loftus and Davis never lost any. How much money those two promoters gained from their various swindles will never be known [Ref: www.legendsofamerica.com]. -62020