Apr 07, 2022 - Sale 2600

Sale 2600 - Lot 290

Price Realized: $ 344
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(WEST--WYOMING.) Extravagant prospectus for the Rich Charter Oak Copper Company. One page of plans and 6 full-page photographic illustrations, numbered with the text. 16 pages, printed in red and black. Oblong folio, 9 1/4 x 12 inches, color illustrated string-bound wrappers, minor wear; minor wear and minimal dampstaining to contents, two light vertical folds throughout. No place, circa 1919

Additional Details

This elegant production was apparently designed to separate Jay Gatsby from his money. The Art Deco-style cover has no text, only an engraving of an elegant woman holding aloft a nugget of copper ore. Inside the front wrapper is a testimonial letter assuring us that the president of the Rich Charter Oak Copper Company is not a scoundrel, and the first page warns us in large type: "Some men say: I wish I had a million, or if I had a million I would do so and so. Now if you fail to read the following pages, you will never have a million." The original recipient of this prospectus took it seriously enough to jot down some pencil calculations next to the assay report. The mine was in Encampment, Wyoming. We can trace no other examples in OCLC or at auction.