Sep 30, 2010 - Sale 2223

Sale 2223 - Lot 328

Price Realized: $ 3,600
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
"MR. VILLA CAME TO TOWN AND EXECUTED HIM " (MEXICO.) Correspondence archive of the El Carmen Copper Company during the Mexican Revolution. Approximately 90 letters received and retained carbon copies of outgoing letters; various sizes and conditions, minor water damage, the carbons brittle and chipped as usual. Vp, 1917
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The El Carmen Copper Company was incorporated in New York and held mines in Durango, Mexico. The letters in the correspondence file are all dated 1917, and are generally addressed to or from the company's president George Moeser. Many of them discuss the difficulties of doing business during the Mexican Revolution. Superintendent F.C. Alley wrote a series of detailed reports from exile in New Mexico and Texas, of much greater interest than the typical corporate memoranda.
On 19 March 1917, Alley described how the mine had been left in the hands of a German friend: "Regardless of the differences now existing between the two nations he took care of my business until the other day Mr. Villa came to town and executed him and all other Germans he could find." Alley wrote on 9 May that he lost two messengers sent to the mine--"they may have been conscripted into some faction"--and has heard that "the Villa faction camped out around there for two or three months, living in the buildings, feeding the corn fodder to their stock, taking such corn and beans as the inhabitants had, making free use of the blacksmith shop etc etc." On 16 July Alley attempted a return to the mine: "I seem to be stranded or possibly worse. Villa captured Parral the day before I arrived. . . . It was one of the hardest hand to hand struggles & probably one of the most blood thirsty Mexico has ever known. . . . Villa managed to kill every Carranza officer in Parral from the General down." On 28 July Alley announced a new agent for the mine: "Mr. Myer has lived in Parral all his life . . . no faction will hurt him; while on the other hand if Villa should catch me down there, although we were good friends at one time, I would stand a mighty poor chance of talking him out of it again." with--8 cancelled stock certificates, 19 tax receipts for individual El Carmen mines in 1904, and 9 other related financial documents, in Spanish and English, most with multiple revenue stamps; various sizes and conditions, 1899-1926.