Peculiarly enough, at the time when the market for Ely Central shares
was lowest, during the latter part of September, fourteen months after
the Scheftels company had taken hold of the proposition, mine reports
were most favorable. Underground development work and churn drilling
had set at rest for all time the question of whether or not mineralized
porphyry underlies the rhyolite cap or flow extending eastward through
Ely Central ground from the steam-shovel pit of the Nevada
Consolidated. Upward of $240,000 had been paid out for administration,
mine equipment and for miners' wages to make this demonstration.
The Scheftels company was now informed that the Nevada Consolidated was
actually meditating a trespass on the Juniper claim of the Ely Central
company, in order to secure an outlet from the lower levels of its
giant steam-shovel pit. Warning in writing had already been served on
the Nevada Consolidated officials against such a course. On September
25th attorneys of the Ely Central Copper Company secured from a Nevada
court an order restraining the Nevada Consolidated from proceeding with
this trespass and citing it to show cause why it should not cease to
trespass on other Ely Central ground.
The attorney telegraphed to New York that a bond was required before
the injunction could be made operative. On September 27th and 28th
telegrams were exchanged between the Ely Central offices in New York
and the Nevada attorneys of the company at Reno as to providing
sureties for the bond.
The sureties never qualified. A catastrophe befell us and brought to an
earthquake finish the house of B. H. Scheftels & Company and all its
ambitious plans.
The constant turmoil in which the House of Scheftels had found itself,
from the day the _Engineering & Mining Journal's_ attack appeared,
had made it impossible for the Scheftels company to hold the markets
for Ely Central and Rawhide Coalition. Impairment of credit, money
stringency and a general declining market were partly responsible. But
there was another important factor. Because of the time-limit of its
options, the Scheftels company was forced, from time to time, to throw
stock on the market at prices which showed an actual loss.
It had one market winner which showed customers and the corporation
itself a large profit, namely, Jumbo Extension. I held an option on
approximately 450,000 shares of this stock at an average price of 35
cents, which I had turned over to the corporation. The market advanced
to 70. Following the tactics employed in Ely Central at the outset of
that deal, the Scheftels corporation had urged all its customers to buy
Jumbo Extension at the very moment when I was negotiating for the
option in Goldfield, with the result that purchases were made in the
open market by readers of our market literature at from 25 cents up,
with accompanying profit-making.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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