Citation Needed - The Great Diamond Hoax

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

The diamond hoax of 1872 was a swindle in which a pair of prospectors sold a false American diamond deposit to prominent businessmen in San Francisco and New York City. It also triggered a brief diamond prospecting craze in the western United States, in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

Almost there dude stop shopping walk faster than and Stop here. Okay. All right new policy. Eli doesn't get to blindfold us no matter what Like actually, how is that not always the policy? This seems a big oversight. Okay. What did you want to show us? You right great question There There in the in the Starbucks Noah sitting by himself. Yeah, that's right, but don't worry. He doesn't think he's gonna be alone for long I've been writing to him for the last six months pretending to be Mr. Nintendo himself

And I told him I want to hire him for his great game ideas. Dude, that is so mean. I know, but like, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I you said? Yeah, I guess it turns out that NOAA can't get calls from Japan without a special plan that's like 500 bucks a month plus, he needed a new laptop that could take in the Japanese internet for the emails I was going to send him and the headphones that could hear it. But his face, man, is going to be worth it. Eli, I think maybe you didn't full Noah after all? What? Ah, okay.

If I didn't fool him, then why did he ask Mr. Nintendo himself to borrow all that money that I lent him? Okay, he's waving at us. See, it's just his arms moving from excitement because I pranked him so good. Hello and welcome, citation needed. Podcast where we choose a subject. Read a single article about it on Wikipedia and 10 where experts. Because this is the internet, and that's how it works now. I'm Heath and I'll be hosting this.

Shindig. Dig. It's about mine. Yep, we're gonna talk about it. Oh, okay, there we go. Alright, alright. Move, flush that. And.

Move. I'm joined by the Gold Silver copper and tin of the podcast in alphabetical order that's C-cell Eli no one's Well, full-scaled technically isn't gold though. I don't think that's and I happen to like a little silver in my beard It says my stem cells have the courage to do what I won't Don't worry most people won't get that job. I will definitely take copper. And I mean that I will sell your wiring for scrap while I'm

house. I wrote in last, so I got 10, a metal so shitty, we don't even make tin foil out of it. All right, tin, what person placed thing concept phenomenon or event? Are we gonna be talking about today, Noah? Today, we're gonna be talking about the great diamond hoax of 1872. And do you have any bibliographical announcements

before we start with that? I do, as a matter of fact. Yeah, incidentally, this was a suggestion of a listener, the Wikipedia article on it is like 50 fucking words. There's nothing there. So I lead heavily on a story that I read in Smithsonian And this was a suggestion of a listener, the Wikipedia article on it is like 50 fucking words. There's nothing there. So I lead heavily on a story that I read in Smithsonian magazine that filled in a ton of the details.

Right. And why did you pick this story? Because it is so obviously a story that belongs on this podcast that when I learned about it, I had to like triple check to make sure we hadn't already done it. All right. So where do we start? Okay, so geographically, it starts in San Francisco, but culturally, it happens at the tail end of a series of major mineral discoveries that it embedded the idea of overnight millionaire

firmly in the minds of Americans. Okay, to be fair, Noah, America as a concept was founded as a get rich quick scheme, the later turn into a 200 a get rich quick scheme. Yeah. Later turned into a 200 year old Ponzi scheme. So that's true. That's yeah, it was so. It's a terrible surround for this to grow in, right? So you've got the original Miners 49ers in the California Gold Rush starts in 1848 and

last through the 1850s, but right on the heels of that, you have the Nevada silver rush because they're the second best state. That goes through the 1860s. And though it's on a different continent, the discovery of that, you have the Nevada silver rush because they're the second best state. That goes through the 1860s. And though it's on a different continent, the discovery of several major diamond mines in South Africa in the late 1860s helped the fuel disbelief from mineral speculation into the 70s. And since people are generally speaking bad at thinking, many of them figured that it stood to reason that if America already had a gold rush and a silver rush, it was due

for a diamond rush. What? Yeah, no, it's like how red is due on this roulette. Yeah, it's true. Exactly. Okay, I've actually heard this argument. A friend of mine was like, listen, I've got the perfect system. If you keep betting on red and you double it each time you lose, you can't lose. Right.

Yeah. But it's crazy. I mean, if it was a gold rush and then a silver rush, shouldn't they've been expecting a bronze rush? Yeah, right. Exactly. Just silly. Yeah, they should mine some bronze.

Yeah. Exactly. It's an alloy. Yeah, you have to have bronze. Yes. 20. 20. So, I did copper and tin earlier.

The answer key is the beginning. Podcast listener, you're not going to hear it, but he will be angrily mumbling the process of creating problems and content of the rest of this podcast. Description. Now, I should point out, of course, that some legitimate fortunes were made during this period, obviously, but they were the exception, not the rule. Most often people were chasing rumors, folklore, and wishful thinking. And now when we do that, we call that Bitcoin mining, but yeah, right. Yeah, right. Still mining, just a different subject.

Yeah. So the Smithsonian article, such a great example that is apparently pretty standard for the time. A bit of silver was discovered in the pyramid mountains in New Mexico at 1870. The Tucson weekly Arizona describes it as follows, quote, the greatest treasure ever discovered on the continent and doubtless, the greatest treasure ever witnessed by the eyes of Jesus. And to quote, a consortium of overfunded bankers and investors swarming to get a stake in it.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars are pumped into the operation, and the whole mine eventually turns up about a bell buckles worth of silver. Okay, but if those investors would have spent some time developing their downline, I would guarantee that they could got a more wealth of the pyramid mountain. Guarantee. Okay, I just want to say the specificity of that joke tells me that Cecil has a family member with a garage full of thrive. It makes me sad. It makes me sad.

It makes me feel like a garage full of amoy at some point in this life. I feel like Cecil just showed up and was like, no, give me the fucking golf clubs. I'm taking this. Not all the failed endeavors were fueled by naive enthusiasm. Some of them were fueled by con artists. The US had, if you can believe this, even fewer regulations on investments back then, then we have now. And since most of the shit was going on, it's pretty much. Yeah. And minds would tax Congress, actually. And most of

these shits going on, like a whole continent away from the seat of the federal government. And, you know, the California state government at this point is a couple decades old still getting its feet under it. So it's super easy to get away with swindling would be prospectors. On top of that, most people looked at prospecting as little more than glorified gambling. So the more prudish Protestant work ethic minded folks love to see prospectors get swindled. Okay. And I hope to prove with this essay

that that's something we share with our forebears. Just being Protestant is literally glorified gambler. I still have that spare. So enter into this situation, one bill of Arnold. So Arnold was born in 1829 in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and literally every source I saw on this pointed out that that's the same county where Abe Lincoln was born. According to his wiki bio, he was quote, a poorly educated hat makers apprentice end quote

interesting phrase. Well, I cannot imagine what poorly educated means by the standards of the 1830s, but he seems based on the historical record to have at least been medium smart. Right. So he was smart enough to get out of the fucking Kentucky, but not smart enough to stay. He was a poorly educated have makers apprentice. When he just start making a hat and occasionally wind up with a pair of slacks,

like, what was that? This seems like a really specific thing to have to apprentice in. Like, just that's, I'm sorry, this seems like a really specific thing to have to apprentice in like Just that If you if you wanted to branch out into gloves and jackets did he had a new certificate or something What the fuck I give you a milliner. Are they called to most you used to be a huge fucking thing Jesus? So so after a stint in the army during the Mexican-American war, he heads out to California in 1849,

right as gold rush fever is sweeping the nation. No, we don't know much about his activities at this point, but we do know that A, he made enough money to go back to Kentucky by a farm and start a family, and B, that he doesn't appear to have ever found any gold. So given what we know about his later business ventures, it's easy to speculate that there were some conning people that happened in this part of his life. But just to be clear, that's just speculating. Yeah, maybe he ran a very successful sometimes a hat shop.

We don't know. Exactly. We're mostly out of state the source. We're on the clearance rack. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right.

Just never know. This is where I go there. You're right, right, right. You're right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, Drill Company. Now, of course, as the name implies, the Diamond Drill Company makes drills with Diamond Head and Bits, but because unlike a lot of the precious stones we spend too much money on, diamonds

are actually super useful anyway. Yeah. They actually prove how much your fiance loves you. Right. You show me a titanium alloy that's gotten folks across this nation anal and then we'll talk. All right. So it's while he's working on for this company that Arnold hatches this big plan, but to make it work, he's going to need an accomplice.

He finds that in his cousin and fellow Mexican American war veteran John Slack. So once he's got his partner locked in, the next thing he needs is a big bag of uncut diamonds. Now, we don't know actually where he got these, but he was working for a company that used uncut diamonds in its manufacturing process before this. We're Gentile diamonds. Wasn't working for them afterwards. So it's a pretty good bat that he stole. Or maybe his sometimes a hat shop only accepted diamonds as payment.

Exactly. That's the key. Now, the next thing they need, of course, is a mark. And for this, they chose prominent businessmen, George D. Roberts. He's one of those guys in history, is right for them, who's way better at promoting himself as a prominent businessman that he is, at actually being a businessman. So like Kevin Hart is a comedian. Exactly. Wow. Or Donald Trump is literally anything. Well, that's not true. I was about to say I'm in a fight with Cecil,

but I had this fight with Eli and Noah, and then I had to be like, I went back and I watched Kevin Hart, he's not as funny as I thought. He's like, the crazy reality we lived in, where he was violently defending Kevin Hart's comment. At first, I think I said Kevin James by accident and it was even more violent when you guys

went out with him. Yeah, it was Kevin Hart. I mean, I wonder what's going to break up the Bay. Kevin Hart. It's going to be me trying to get to the other half of this sense. So, yeah. So, yeah. So, George D. Robertson, a prominent businessman, I don't know if Arnold and Slack knew that he was kind of a baker who would go and interrupt.

They just got lucky, but it makes him pretty much the perfect victim for this plot. So they show up in his office late one night looking all weather beaten and dirty and clutching this small leather bag. And they tell him they have something super valuable in there, but they got into town too late to deposit in the bank. But he's a banker, he's a prominent visitor. Oh my God. Like maybe he knows somewhere they could safely stash it.

Don't worry, we put a handsome lock on the bag. So only the handsomeest boy can suck. That's a huge help, right? Phew! Another hard day working at the rich mindful of valuable riches. Yeah! Why that dragon? I know, he was tough, but worth the effort, right?

Oh yeah, he was. Who would have thought you could find so many valuables in one mindful of riches? I know. I know. What's your favorite part? I don't know. I mean, the gems were pretty great, but still... I like the platinum blowjob machines. So great! So we have the best jobs.

The best. Too bad it's just the two of us, though. Never get all those blowjob machines out of there. Such a shame. Alright, so at this point, Roberts is salivating that they feigned reluctance to tell him what they've got at first. But after Roberts swears, he'll keep their seafrids. Arnold shows him this bag of precious gems.

And he's pretty vague about where he got him. But he leads Roberts to believe that they've come across a valuable untap mine somewhere nearby. And at this point, of course, Roberts starts explaining to them that they're going to need a lot of money to get all the equipment and surveyors and whatnot that they're going to need to take advantage of this big fine. And by golly, he'd be happy to help him out if in that regard. Okay. I mean, the unsolicited secret bag opportunity from two strangers in the middle of the night. I mean, that's like some of my funnest nights in my life. And hey, the dogecoin suckers didn't even get a bag out of it. So to the moon. So now that Roberts has so obligingly spirit himself onto their hook,

he sets about calling the biggest fish that he knows. He assembles a group of would be investors, including William C. Rauston, the founder of the Bank of California, and the plan buoyantly named as very harpend. I love that name so God damn it. He's a well known prospector who was at the time in London, trying to sell shares in that doomed silver mine that I mentioned earlier. He also brings in William Lenton and General George Estadge described only as

mining entrepreneurs. One of these guys is just three kids in a trench coat with his dad's driver's license in crime. You know what I mean? Right? Nobody had, nobody was like, yeah, so it's the Asbury Harpening. I'm going into business with Asbury Harpening.

And got warned that that's not gonna work out. And out and just open a trench coat one time and let us see Now now obviously the first thing that this consortium was to is get Arnold and slack the fuck out of the picture So they can keep all the riches for themselves and that's actually why Arnold needed a partner in the first place This is how he was gonna fund the whole fucking thing the investors immediately offer him a low-ball amount for their stake in the fine. It's a hundred grand each. That's over two million dollars in today's money. So like a four million dollar payout for a bag of stolen uncut diamonds is pretty good, but Arnold's after a lot more than that.

To get there though, he needs this big injection of cash, which is why Slack takes the offer. The bankers agree to give him $50,000 then and another $ 50,000 once they've had a chance to examine the diamond mine. And Slack takes it on the condition that he and Arnold get to go make one last trip out to the site and keep whatever they find. Okay. I'm going to give you guys a few days, but then I'm going to spend this giant lot of money on a magician's hat that holds unlimited rabbit. All right. So with that 50 grand in hand, Arnold and Slack had not over to some fictional mine, but to London, where they spent $20,000 of that buying rough diamonds

and rubies of shit from a merchant named Leopold Keller. But half of those were destined for San Francisco as further evidence of what a lucrative mind they discovered. It would be amazing. The other half would be sprinkled around some random Mass fields to speak right faster to find a nice. That's fucking outstanding. Fucking why the prospectors even have shovels and picks. Pick them like raspberries.

All right. Well, it sounds like some people might get duped by two guys who think diamond mining is basically unsprinkled and dying. Looking forward to that. But of course, we're going to take a quick break for something that definitely relates to the story. Yeah. Yeah Gentlemen, thank you for coming on such short notice, but What this speculator says is, this may be worth your time. Boseau! Right, I guess. I'm Boseau the Clown, and I believe I may have discovered a source of near infinite wealth. Your ears.

Why, where did that come from? It came from your ears. I believe that there may be, again, a near infinite supply back there. But that's like a silver dollar. You could destroy the economy with that. I know, I know, that's why we must use the utmost caution. Have you consulted an expert on this? I indeed we have, Dr. Bingbong,

who wants a balloon animal. Good to do, good to do. No, this is the other thing. Oh, right, right, sorry. I mean, gentlemen, we believe this money may come from the birthday boy spot In children the spot is only accessible on the aforementioned birthday As we grow into adulthood spot softens and becomes accessible at all time my god Imagine the possibilities now my colleague and I believe that we can fully explore this phenomenon and, of course,

make all of you very rich in the process for an initial investment of $300. $300 plus... ...plus fare. Yes, plus plus fare. Now, gentlemen, what say you? Oh, we are in! Here, here! Indeed!

Great. Now, we want to balloon in, can you do a sword? It's not a... Yes. I want a poppy. It's got snake with a bowtie. I can't do a poppy. And we're back. When we left off Arnold and Slack, we're about to sprinkle some diamonds in a field and

maybe drizzle some oil out here. So once Arnold and Slack get back to San Francisco, they are offered to make one more trip to the Diamond field and come back with a couple of million dollars worth of gemstones of that the consortium can keep as a guarantee of their investment. Of course, this trip was really to seed the field rather than harvested, but the investors agreed enthusiastically. So they come back with half of the stones they got from London. They explained that they did come across two million dollars worth of stones, just like they said they were, but while they were rafting them down

the river, wouldn't you know it? Most of them sank and they were only able to save this one fat. All of my girlfriends did live on the Canadian border. They just simultaneously drowned in nine or 12. And don't ask anyone in Canada about it because Canada is still really sensitive about it. Now, as dumb as these investors were, they weren't all the way dumb. I don't know, man. They're already out $50,000 before the grift started. That's...

Yeah, no, bear. I'm telling you, they're not Trump supporter dumb, though. So once they got this bag from Arnold, they take about 10% of it to New York to get the appraisal of America's most famous Jullar both then and now Charles Lewis Tiffany. Yes, that Tiffany perhaps you've heard of his breakfast or his racism Yeah, racism maybe yeah, so they also and I love this detail loans some of their biggest uncut gems to a San Francisco Jullar for Display figuring that salivating over uncut diamonds Would lube up the city's investor class when it came time to sell shares in their burgeoning company. Oh Yes, I'm gonna put these right here next to these fancy new clothes for the

Okay, I feel like this San Francisco Juller is somehow Philip Arnold in Okay, I feel like this San Francisco Jouler is somehow Philip Arnold in a month. Right? So Robert's harpender at all go to New York and they get a meeting with Tiffany. He spends a while looking at the assortment of diamonds, rubies, admirals and sapphires and he declares that they're definitely legit. But he admits he can't assess their value without the help of his lapidary. That's the guy who actually cuts and engraves the stones. But he says they're quote, precious stones of enormous value."

And quote, two days later Arnold catches the luckiest break he'll get in this whole fucking ordeal when Tiffany's lapidary wildly overestimates the value of what the guys brought. Keep in mind, this is 10% of half of the shit that Arnold and Slack bought for $20,000 in London. Tiffany tells him it's worth $150,000. That implies that the sack that Arnold bought, that he said there were more of in the river, was worth about a million and a half bucks. The Labrador was wrong by 750%. What did he look at him? Oh, fuck it. I'm going to be okay. Eli, really quick, how does percent work in your life? How many percent do you think there are? Let's start simple.

Well, it goes in a circle and then there's one circle and then that's seven and a half circle. Okay, just to be clear, the number is 15,000% of what they paid for that amount. Just so everybody knows. It's so easy. Yes. Yes, thank you. Now, so inflated, it sounds exactly like a, we're like a diamond appraisal.

Yeah. Absolutely. Now, obviously this bit raises a few eyebrows, right? It would be like historically, like how the fuck can the country's most famous and most successful jeweler get it that wrong? Well, it turns out they were talking to the wrong people. Neither Tiffany nor his lapidary had much experience working with actual uncut stones.

And Tiffany's reputation apparently didn't allow him to just go, I don't fucking know, man. This is not the kind of stuff I only worked with Jewish diamonds before. Oh, Jesus. No. Jewish diamonds before. Oh Jesus. So. Uncut. So now that seems like an insufficient explanation to me,

but that's all I could tease out of the sources without having to know a bunch of new stuff and shit. So podcast listener, that's Noah's way of saying, I learned 200 years of diamond appraisal history, but everyone on the podcast tickled me into like, we talked over to the message. So anyway, the buoyed by the break of a lifetime Arnold sets out to finally show his investors their diamond mind or diamond farm or whatever they're going for.

So they head out to the field. They've been seating is a remote spot Northwest Colorado and they bring along a fellow by the name of Henry Janon. He's a well-respected mining engineer, at least at the beginning of this story, meant to assess the field and make sure that everything's on the up and up, but they chose to pay him in the dumbest imaginable way. So they offer him $2,500 plus the right to buy 1,000 shares of their company at $10 a share. So they basically said they're like, hey, we want you to assess the viability of this potential diamond mine

and we'll pay you a hell of a lot more if you say it's legit. So he said it was legit. So far, the diamond hooks of 1872 is exactly the enron business. Like somebody was just reading this with media article, the Jeff's skilling had this it was something which is reading this Wikipedia article, the Jeff's skilling had this out. And he's like, all right, that's what we do next.

Yeah. There we go, sprinkle some oil or something. Oh, so I just have to wonder at this point, who's fucking property of this wandering around chucking rubies about upon us? Who's, who's places that? Yeah, well, the 1870s, so it doesn't belong to anybody unless you count Native Americans as people. So and they did not.

Now, of course, during this trip, they were able to unearth quite a few precious gems. Those, especially since Arnold was like suggested, maybe they checked this spot over there. So all the investors head back to San Francisco to count their unhatched chickens, but and they lead slacked on other buddy that they brought along to guard their cash cow. Now, apparently the two of them didn't get along. So they both fucked up. This is where slack disappears from the goddamn story. Right.

Apparently he figured he'd milked enough out of this scam. He didn't want to be there when everything came to light. So he just got the fuck out and holy shit was his timing impeccable. At the end of the inspection Arnold just carrying the investors from hiding spot to hiding spot like their board two year olds. He's got to bring in a moore of the explorer standing next to him. Can you say diamond? Now at this point one final character makes his way into this story and many would be in a line to call him the story's hero. I reserve that spot for filibar no

But you do of course you do. So clearance King is a geologist and he's kind of like half scientists half explorer. He was the first person to summit several of the highest peaks in the Sierra Nevada. He's also the guy who apparently named Mount Whitney. And when he was 25 years old, he convinced Congress to fund a surveying expedition of an 800 mile rectangle of the mostly unexplored area surrounding the new transcontinental road. And he just so happens to share a train at some point with one Henry Janon and catches some idle chatter about this amazing discovery of theirs. Yeah. And then Dora showed me where even a bigger diamond was and just leans across the car.

Hey, I am so sorry to interrupt. I'm gonna stop. I'm gonna stop you. All right. So now, Clarence King knows good and damn well. There are no huge diamond mines in Northwest Colorado because he just finished surveying the fucking place. But his first thought

isn't that Janet is swindling anybody or the Janet's being swindled. His first thought is that they had seriously fucked up their survey. See, this is why it doesn't pay to be half a scientist. You're always second guessing your right. Yeah. Half explorer is pretty much useless as well. So it's a wrong there. It's a terrible multi-class. Can I just say that? It's a terrible multi class. Can I just say that it's a terrible multi class? All right. So he talks with Janet and even though the guys obviously not going to tell him exactly where the diamond field is, King knows the area well enough. He figures it out based on what Janet does. Let's let. So he and his team head back out to give the area another somewhat more thorough perusal and this time they find

diamonds rubies and sapphires that are like fucking sticking out of the ground like an Easter egg hunt for Todd. Okay, guys, moving forward, we need an icon system for precious jewels on the map. Okay, I cannot believe we missed this. Right. We look like an idiot. So right away, King knows something's fishy. First of all, it's impossible that they would have missed a rich ass field of precious

gems, those like this the first time around. But also the gems weren't where gems go. Right? Like they didn't see this place well. For example, his guys noticed that there were a lot of rubies in ant hills. But all the in the ones that had clearly been disturbed by human footwear. For example, his guys noticed that there were a lot of rubies in ant hills. But, wait, but only in the ones that had clearly been disturbed by human footprints recently, but they only found stones in soil that had been recently disturbed, obviously,

and wherever they would, this is so fucking lazy, wherever they found a diamond, they would also find a small pile of rubies near it. Everything about a suspicious is how, so to confirm that it's a hoax, they dig this big ass trench and they find out that sure enough, all of the precious gemstones are within the first foot or so of the soil. Hey boss, maybe the mole people already got below, or maybe that's why I don't think we missed them. I love that also embedded in this is that very clearly none of these prospectors like nowhere diamonds or rubies come from, like none of them were just like,

you know, it's literally impossible. There'd be just diamonds just in a field. Why, it's not how diamonds work. None of us, none of us know how diamonds work. It's none of us. I feel like at the time nobody did, but I could be wrong on that one. I wasn't allowed to use my 200 years of service.

Nobody wants to be the first guy to be like, I'm pretty sure diamonds don't grow like strawberries. I know. No, it's not just the growl of strawberries. You don't want to be the dry. There's a trail of candy, really. It's a hot. All right, so on their fourth day at the site, a guy's a trail of candy. Really, he's a cheongan. All right, so on their fourth day at the site, a guy by the name of J.F. Barry shows up.

He asked what they've been doing. Now, apparently he's a diamond dealer from New York. He'd also heard about this big diamond mine and he'd set out to find it. And he'd been watching them through a telescope for the last couple of days. So why not King's men blurt out the whole fucking story to which Barry has reported to have said, what a chance to sell short on the stock. How can any normal conversation come out of I was watching you through a telescope for

a couple of days. I mean, you were yelling, but our talk was pretty normal. I was wearing a short earring. All right. So King decides he needs to make this information public right away. The next morning, even before sunrise, he and his one of his guys sets out towards San Francisco to see if he could, in his own words, quote, find out the status of the company and preventive possible further transactions in the stock.

End quote. So as soon as he gets to San Freddy, he sets up a meeting with the investors in Roushdon's office at the Bank of California, and he explains everything he and his team learned. And then he reads a letter that he intends to publish the following morning about how they'd all been the victims of fraud. Okay. Hey, guys, let's consider this my letter right now that every single NFT is a fraud, is a stupid, stupid fraud, except for the one of me licking right now, which is a great

value. Yeah. Never. which is a great value. Yeah. Never heard of it. All right, so all these bat cat investors take this all in. They sign this belief and then they try to bribe King into waiting a couple extra days to publish this letter. But to his credit, King told them to go fuck themselves. He exposed the fraud and he became a sort of like short-lived national hero. The papers obligingly made him the symbol of integrity and they wrote these haggiographic

editorials about the powers of oddest science over con artists and liars. I even wound up friends with Teddy Roosevelt over the whole ordeal and died penniless because you know he had all the integrity but yeah, what? Yeah, right why you buy some games stop eating right? But whatever happened to the real hero of the story well Arnold made it out. After the trick is a seeded field, he collected another $150,000 and dipped the back of the Kentucky. Yes. So he bought a, he gets, gets back to the Kentucky by his two story house, 500 acres, puts it all in his white. So 149 thousand dollar plus that's it. No, he puts everything in his wife's name.

Yeah. Yeah. So he puts it everything in his wife's name and he lives happily ever after. He was eventually indicted by a grand jury in San Francisco, but apparently the indictment was quashed by the investors because they didn't want a whole bunch more press about how easily they were.

And when news of the indictment reached him in Kentucky, he told the local paper quote, I have employed council myself a good Henry rifle. Jesus. And so lovely. And if you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence, O2P, the world's most valuable knowledge is how smart rich people aren't.

Yeah, it's crazy. You're ready for the quiz. I'll answer half the questions now and half when I get paid. Okay. His lawyer's name was not, no, his lawyer's name was not a good Henry rifle. What was the name of Arnold's firearm lawyer? A. Amy Coney Barrett 50 Cal. Nice.

B. Barrett a cabinet. C. Ellen A. K. G. D. That one didn't work for you. John open carry.

Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I don't know. It's still like a K. It's I tried to pause. It didn't work. D. John open carry.

Or B. Hackler and Cochran. Guys. So, oh, I'm gonna have to go with B, Boretic Avenue, because that's beautiful. Oh, you are correct.

It is Boretic Avenue. All right, Noah, after this we've learned so much about how not to get swindled by absurd pitches that can't possibly be real. No, we haven't. How do I know we didn't learn anything? Hey, Bernie made off. B, M way, C and Ron D Q and on. E, it's unsettling how long this list could grow. I just had to stop myself. I was just just going to think that my the correct answer was going to be why all of the above. So I'll

go with E. All right. Did see. All right. Noah, it's easy for us to look down our noses, the folks who invested in this mind, but what equally faulty con are we invested in? Hey, people paying us for this free podcast. What is that?

Yes. Don't listen to this man. Keith N. Wright's work. Oh, so mean. Oh, so mean. So mean democracy. All right. Well, because this bit requires that I get it wrong, I'll go with B so that you can say how wrong you are on that one.

That's right. It was wrong. Oh, now he doesn't say that you want to win Someone I'm gonna tell Eli Hey Eli, who would you like to do have do the video for me? I want he to write an essay because I love his essays. He works so hard on them and I love them It's just a silly silly fun joke for me and I love them. It's just a silly fun joke for her.

Ah! Ah! Silly fun podcast, you're all so... Ugh. You wanna do the, uh, I'm kinda tired. You wanna do the half of the party. Ah! Ah!

Ah! Ah! Oh, he's gotta move some more for an attractive. It's only been six months. Ah! Ah! Cecil! Yikes!

I'm Heath, thank you for having me. Yeah, I would say we'll be back next week. And by then, I will be an expert on something else. Between now and then'm Heath, thank you for having me. Yeah, I will be back next week and by then. Hi, we'll be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can hear Tom and Sea Salon, Pognitive Disnance, and you can hear No On Myself on God off of what is kidding me. If you've got the grad and D&D minus, and if you'd like to support the show,

you can make a prep, so donation it. patreon.com slash citation pod. Or you can send Tom some Bitcoin for an NFT of podcast, T-Mess. And you can invest Tom some Bitcoin for an NFT of pot for a team that's invested in that space. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, listen to past episodes, connect to social media. Take a look at the show notes, check out citation pod.com. And so you're telling us you could produce any game for us? No sir, just rabbits.

Still, the implications for world hunger are staggering. Indeed they are, indeed they are. Can I pet him? Yes you can. This is the best day.