Latest / Ridiculous History / The Great Diamond Hoax - Part 1

Transcript

The Great Diamond Hoax - Part 1 · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: to Ridiculous History. Thanks for tuning in, Ridiculous Historians. I
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: am Ben. I have found our legendary and legendarily obnoxious
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: uh sound making machine. Ben, I'm Noel. If you if
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  Speaker 1: you think the batteries have ever been replaced on that,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: do you think it's slowly like dying? And that's why
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: it's just that that that super tin e quality. I
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: think Okay, first off, I think we definitely cut corners
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: when whomever purchased this purchased it. The batteries had to
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  Speaker 1: be replaced at some point because this is a p
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  Speaker 1: O J piece of junk. Can you give us some
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: other samples? Shot them from the repertoire? Sure, but they all,
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  Speaker 1: I want to worry, they all go on a little
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  Speaker 1: too long. Here. I'll do one. I'll pass it to
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  Speaker 1: you so we can share in the things. Yeah, okay, um,
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  Speaker 1: oh of course, Uh. There there's some classic hits here.
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  Speaker 1: But let's go with something a little bit, a little
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  Speaker 1: bit out of the normal. Let's go with Poco stick.
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  Speaker 1: See how they see how they said they go on
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  Speaker 1: too long? Here you go knock one out. And also
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  Speaker 1: it sounds. I don't know. Never mind. I was gonna
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: say it sounds like a clown masturbating. But that's not
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: that's not okay, this is accurate. You know what, Maybe
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  Speaker 1: we leave it is, keep it in. I feel like
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  Speaker 1: that's articulate. Let's see, do you do you think there's
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  Speaker 1: a diamonds and pearls sound cue. Um, there's definitely a
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  Speaker 1: couple of disaster sounds. You think we'll get suited for this?
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  Speaker 1: I I will give you diamonds and emper And that
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  Speaker 1: didn't go long enough. I was trying to do a
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  Speaker 1: siren diamonds and pearls mash up remix thing. I say
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  Speaker 1: diamonds and pros because they were talking about only one
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  Speaker 1: of those two things. It's diamonds and about pearls in
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  Speaker 1: today's episode. Well, uh, there have been counterfeit pearls of
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  Speaker 1: plenty we do. I shouldn't have handed this to you.
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  Speaker 1: I almost I thought, let's just do it once, we'll go,
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  Speaker 1: but but we do have to shout out the inspiration
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  Speaker 1: behind the perfect sound cue. Of course that's our super producer,
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  Speaker 1: Casey Pegrum. No. You know I'm interested because you said
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  Speaker 1: diamonds right. Uh diamonds in a way because this is
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  Speaker 1: also a bit of a crime story. It's a bit
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  Speaker 1: of a con right, you know they say diamonds are
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  Speaker 1: a girl's best friend. Uh was that a song or
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  Speaker 1: did that come from the de Beers company? It was
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  Speaker 1: a Liz Taylor thing, right, It's all de Beers, the
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  Speaker 1: de Beers family and the way. In the same way
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  Speaker 1: that Edward Burns made bacon a thing with the Beer's
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  Speaker 1: family basically made diamonds a thing. And while they might
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  Speaker 1: be a girl's best friend, um, they certainly aren't a
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  Speaker 1: friend of of the working class or the folks in
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  Speaker 1: uh third world countries that are you know, subjected to
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  Speaker 1: horrible conditions to mind them from the earth. For the
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  Speaker 1: privileged classes of countries, they'll never set fun in. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: this has been a personal hobby horse of mind since
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  Speaker 1: that at times several years ago when I got married
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  Speaker 1: and I had to go diamond shopping and I found
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  Speaker 1: out about the whole racket. We have a great episode
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  Speaker 1: about that on Stuff they Don't Want you to Know,
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  Speaker 1: with our very own Lauren Vogel Bombs, who was the
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  Speaker 1: first guest on Ridiculous History. You're right, she was, wasn't
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: she Yeah, what are we talking about with her? She
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  Speaker 1: was the fact Genie. Yeah, the fact Genie, which we had. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: this is funny. We will get to an episode today,
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  Speaker 1: but you might enjoy this, folks. Collaboratively, we were all
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  Speaker 1: pitching these ideas of segments. I'm a very big believer inside.
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  Speaker 1: I think they're cool for shows. Uh. And we had
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  Speaker 1: we had a time that never made it off the list. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: maybe we'll dig that up, but we digress. Diamonds, Yes,
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  Speaker 1: as you said, an old diamonds do have a dark side,
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  Speaker 1: and they've been super popular for years and years. Travel
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  Speaker 1: with us back to California, back to the West in
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  Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds, you know, we're we're all familiar with
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  Speaker 1: the California gold rush, right. That's the reason the San
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  Speaker 1: Francisco forty Niners are named the San Francisco forty Niners.
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  Speaker 1: People thought you could make a fortune hunting gold or
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  Speaker 1: or mining silver maybe in Nevada, and so everybody was
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  Speaker 1: kind of speculating and like, what's the next big thing, right,
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  Speaker 1: is it gonna be like, I don't know, platinum, Is
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  Speaker 1: it gonna be copper, Is it going to be diamonds?
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  Speaker 1: Possibly scorpion filled paperweights. Yeah, I was gonna hold my
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  Speaker 1: likey scorpion until next next episode, but I think we're
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  Speaker 1: just doing the one today, I think. So it's a
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  Speaker 1: very beautiful talisman you've got there. Yeah, check this out.
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  Speaker 1: So this is a glass encased preserved scorpion of no
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  Speaker 1: small size from my last trip out to uh to Arizona. Actually, hey,
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  Speaker 1: that's just the part of the country that we're talking about. See,
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  Speaker 1: I had I had to like a loose theme, man.
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  Speaker 1: Uh So people are all trying to strike it rich.
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  Speaker 1: And you know, whenever there's the speculative market. We see
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  Speaker 1: this now, even even with stocks day, whenever there's a
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  Speaker 1: speculative market, people will tell you, well, the thing that
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  Speaker 1: just became a boom, you know, the time for you
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  Speaker 1: to enter that is past. You've got to look for
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  Speaker 1: the next thing, right, And people didn't have the benefit
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  Speaker 1: of communication technology, or at least not at the time
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  Speaker 1: we have today. So you had to trust people and
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  Speaker 1: you had to you know, you had to stake a
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  Speaker 1: lot on somebody's character, right. That's why so many people
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  Speaker 1: rode the rails and traveled across the continent to seek
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  Speaker 1: their fortune in the West, and in eighteen seventy. San
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  Speaker 1: Francisco had already swelled to a city with a population
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  Speaker 1: of like a hundred and fifty thousand people. And that's
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  Speaker 1: where we meet one of the main characters of our story.
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  Speaker 1: You're talking about Arnold and Slack. Oh yeah, Philip Arnold, right, right,
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  Speaker 1: But what a great name for a for a duo
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  Speaker 1: of huckster's right, Arnold and Slack. So Philip Arnold. It
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  Speaker 1: was from Kentucky. He was He didn't have the best
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  Speaker 1: formal education. He had a job as an apprentice to
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  Speaker 1: a haberdasher. He was a veteran of the Mexican War.
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  Speaker 1: He had gone, like so many souls, to the gold
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  Speaker 1: rush in forty nine, and he had spent By the
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  Speaker 1: time of our story takes place, he had spent about
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  Speaker 1: twenty years working in mining operations in the West, and
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  Speaker 1: he did okay. He eventually made enough money they could
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  Speaker 1: go back to Kentucky. He got a farm, he got married,
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  Speaker 1: had some kids, and historians think he made a little
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  Speaker 1: bit of money, sure, but you know, he didn't want
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  Speaker 1: to rest on his laurels. He got a little squirrel
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  Speaker 1: in a on eighteen seventy he had a gig working
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  Speaker 1: as a bookkeeper for a company called the Diamond Drill
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  Speaker 1: Company in San Francisco. It was a drill manufacturer that
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  Speaker 1: used those famous diamond headed tips for their drill bits, right. Um,
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  Speaker 1: So while he was keeping the books, he became pretty
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  Speaker 1: fascinated in these these drill bits, um that were you know,
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  Speaker 1: so widely used here. And he even like really did
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  Speaker 1: his homework and started like researching how the material worked,
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  Speaker 1: the whole trade of drilling, drill making, I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: And uh in November he had amassed himself a small
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  Speaker 1: cash of uncut diamonds. You know, I love it, man,
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  Speaker 1: It's like the billionaires go bag. Just there's a few
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  Speaker 1: things as sketchy as a bag at loose diamond I
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  Speaker 1: love especially, so when you call him loose diamonds, that's right, um.
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  Speaker 1: And you know, the idea is that he probably uh
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  Speaker 1: pilfred these throughout the years from his boss. And he
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  Speaker 1: had some other uncut gems mixed in there as well.
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  Speaker 1: He had some sapphires and some rubies and some garnets
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  Speaker 1: and it's pretty likely that he bought those in Arizona
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  Speaker 1: from some of the Indian tribes there. Yeah, and he
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  Speaker 1: also at this time got a partner, and that's the
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  Speaker 1: guy who mentioned earlier black John Slack and Smithsonian magazine
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  Speaker 1: and their article on this subject has a great description
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  Speaker 1: of John Slack. They say that he is the listless,
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  Speaker 1: taciturn foil to the voluble and cunning Arnold. Slack was
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  Speaker 1: a cousin of Arnold's and he was also a veteran
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  Speaker 1: for the Mexican War. He had gone chasing Golden forty nine,
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  Speaker 1: but he was going to be the kind of the
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  Speaker 1: assistant to Arnold in there too and con because you see,
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  Speaker 1: they decided to commit hoax. They saw everybody in San
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  Speaker 1: Francisco in the area going mad with greed and speculation
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  Speaker 1: because of the gold rush. Like the gold rush literally
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  Speaker 1: did make some people's fortunes, right, because you even had
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  Speaker 1: like the Comstock load in Nevada, which was this massive,
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  Speaker 1: massive pocket of silver underneath this mountain peak that was
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  Speaker 1: just churning out silver just by the boatload, right, And
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  Speaker 1: it really contributed to this speculation gone wild kind of
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  Speaker 1: mentality because you did have some people that were absolutely
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  Speaker 1: getting rich overnight. If you've ever seen the TV series Deadwood,
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  Speaker 1: you get a sense of that. Um there's a few
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  Speaker 1: characters that strike it rich and I think one of
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  Speaker 1: them Ellsworth. You know, he goes from kind of being
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  Speaker 1: just sort of this like pretty working class, kind of
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  Speaker 1: like ruffian around town to essentially having to figure out
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  Speaker 1: what it means to be like a gentleman and uh
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  Speaker 1: and all that stuff. And it's actually pretty funny the
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  Speaker 1: way they portray He's a great character. Um, but yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you kind of see it from the ground up there,
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  Speaker 1: and that was very real, Yeah it was. And people
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  Speaker 1: were so convinced that they would be able to take
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  Speaker 1: advantage of this bubble like any other bubble, like that
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  Speaker 1: thing with the tulips over in Europe, like uh, Beanie
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  Speaker 1: babies podcasts, my podcast. Oh it hurts you wound me,
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  Speaker 1: but I don't think you're too far wrong, like any bubble.
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  Speaker 1: People were convinced that, you know, uh, these other folks
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  Speaker 1: might be rubes, but I'm the smart guy, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I'm the captain smarty pants who was gonna it was
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  Speaker 1: gonna profit here. And that led to a situation where
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  Speaker 1: some of these businessmen in San Francisco, where shall we say,
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  Speaker 1: over confidence and you know, people would pitch them these
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  Speaker 1: wild ideas and as soon as they heard the m
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  Speaker 1: word mining. Then they were on board. They would be like,
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  Speaker 1: shut up, shut your pie hole. I've heard enough to
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  Speaker 1: take my money. Take my money, don't care where where, where,
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  Speaker 1: where where, even in South Africa. It's fine. Give it
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  Speaker 1: to me, take it to to one of those places
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  Speaker 1: you just described, and then come back with gems. And
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  Speaker 1: so here's how they instituted their scam. So Slack and
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  Speaker 1: Arnold kind of dressed up as prospectors, you know, like
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  Speaker 1: I'm rough. They've been sleeping, uh in like a situation
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  Speaker 1: that Tom Waits was sleeping in that excellent what was
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: that Netflix film? Oh buster scrugs, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tom
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  Speaker 1: Waits as the old prospector was I think the best
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  Speaker 1: one in that anthology series. I really liked that moment
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  Speaker 1: where James Franco asked the guy if it's his first
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: time being hanged? Also great, there were a lot of
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  Speaker 1: greater I just thought that Tom Waits one was really moving.
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  Speaker 1: So picture Tom Waits and then film that's what they
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  Speaker 1: look like when they go to, uh, the office of
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  Speaker 1: a businessman named George Roberts, and their clutching a leather satchel.
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  Speaker 1: So uh, they announced this businessman George Roberts that this
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  Speaker 1: buckskin pouch they're carrying was full of pretty valuable loot
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  Speaker 1: and they were hoping to deposit it in a bank
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  Speaker 1: if it if it wasn't so late. So instead they
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  Speaker 1: decided to you know, they saw this place. This guy
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  Speaker 1: was around, I guess, you know, closing up or like
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  Speaker 1: doing some book work or whatever, and they were hoping
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  Speaker 1: that he helped them out because it was you know, oh,
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  Speaker 1: there's rough diamonds in your Oops, i've said too much,
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  Speaker 1: said too much, good sir. Yeah, that's exactly how it works, right,
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  Speaker 1: You get you hook people with that because you make
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  Speaker 1: them feel like you've now entered into a bond of
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  Speaker 1: privileged information or trust. So the way Arnold recalls this
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  Speaker 1: was that the businessman Roberts was pretty impressed by this
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  Speaker 1: discovery and he said, Okay, you guys, you can trust me.
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  Speaker 1: I will keep your secret. You go explore this area
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  Speaker 1: further and fig route what we're working with here. And
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  Speaker 1: then Arnold knew that the best way to get this
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  Speaker 1: word to spread was to get this businessman they didn't
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  Speaker 1: know from mccanna paint to promise that he would be
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  Speaker 1: quiet about it. Apparently, Roberts was cartoonishly bad at keeping
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  Speaker 1: his promise. As soon as the guys were done, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: thank god he didn't have a cell phone. As soon
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  Speaker 1: as the guys twitter account right, right, Roberts is riding
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  Speaker 1: around town. He finds one of the most important businessmen
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  Speaker 1: in San Francisco, guy named William Ralston, who also owns
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  Speaker 1: the Bank of California. And you could kind of picture
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  Speaker 1: Robert's motivation, right, He's trying to get a big He's
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  Speaker 1: trying to curry some favor, you know, and he wants
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  Speaker 1: a piece of the diamond pie. Uh. Ralston gets worried
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  Speaker 1: of this, and you know, you can picture the like
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  Speaker 1: Morse code montage going on here with dits and dashes
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  Speaker 1: and dots. Uh. And he sends a telegram to another businessman.
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  Speaker 1: He knows. This guy has the best name you're talking about,
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  Speaker 1: Ashbury Harpending. Yes, he's described multiple times as somewhat shady. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, but with it with a
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  Speaker 1: name like that, you've got the air of respectability about you,
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  Speaker 1: so you're allowed to kind of, you know, have some
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  Speaker 1: secret shady dealings. Who. Yeah, he had actually been accused
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  Speaker 1: of high treason though, um eight years prior to that.
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  Speaker 1: When he attempted to sail out of San Francisco Bay
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  Speaker 1: with a ship that he was going to use as
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: a Confederate raider um along the coast of California. Pretty weird, right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: what does that even mean? Ben? What do you mean
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  Speaker 1: he was gonna go a raiding, a rapin and a
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  Speaker 1: pilage in. Yeah, it's like pillage ade harrying the Union
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  Speaker 1: forces on the West coast. I guess was his idea
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  Speaker 1: or yeah, you know, he clearly he hadn't thought it
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  Speaker 1: through all the way. But we we want to show
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  Speaker 1: you how the web is spreading the web of this misinformation.
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  Speaker 1: While this is happening concurrently, Arnold and Slack are returning
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  Speaker 1: to Roberts and they say, okay, we wanted to keep
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  Speaker 1: our word. We want to update you. We're pretty excited
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  Speaker 1: by what we found. Yeah. Yeah, they came back with
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  Speaker 1: more loot. Yeah they they you know, valued off the
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  Speaker 1: top of their heads at about six hundred thousand dollars,
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  Speaker 1: which is just that is an absolute fortune in those days. Right. Yeah,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: let's do an inflation calculator just to give you a
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: sense of how much money that was. Drumroll, please, six
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  Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars in eighteen seventy was equal to about
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: eleven point eight million dollars today. So they walked up
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  Speaker 1: to this guy and they said, hey, you seem cool,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: thanks for keeping our secret. We have come back with
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  Speaker 1: like almost twelve million dollar is worth of gems and
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: that's just the sixty pounds we could carry. Yeah, that's right, um.
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  Speaker 1: And so they were kind of trying to just pull
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  Speaker 1: him in deeper, and they could see those dollar signs
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  Speaker 1: in his eyes just starting to flash like something like
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  Speaker 1: a cartoon character. And so Robert's bit completely, he totally
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  Speaker 1: took debit and started pulling in other businessmen, um, saying, look,
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  Speaker 1: this is really real. Now. These guys are like they've
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: got a spot they're going to and bringing me these
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: diamonds from. We gotta figure out where it is, right yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and yeah the jewels authenticated as well. So these were
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: not like fake jewels. I mean, this was they were
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: They were sort of I guess what you consider low
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: quality diamonds, right right, right, they were diamonds. Yeah, they
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: were definitely diamonds. That's the thing that we're real diamonds.
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  Speaker 1: And they had had a jeweler say that and confirm it.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: But remember we said these businessmen were overconfident. One common
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: thing about all great cons, all great scams, is that
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  Speaker 1: they depend upon the human failings of people, in this case,
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  Speaker 1: greed and over confidence. Because Roberts goes back to the
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: guy Ralston who owns the Bank of California, goes back
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: to that shady would be Confederate sailor Harpenden. And then
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: they also get to San Francisco miners who have already
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: made it. Two entrepreneurs named William Lent and a guy
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: named General George S. Dodge, and together these five men say, look,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: we know the deal. Let's take these two yokels, these
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: two dumb dumbs from Kentucky, and let's buy them out.
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  Speaker 1: Let's cut them out of the picture, and let's make
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  Speaker 1: some serious scratch. And so they say, Okay, the easiest
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: way to do this is we'll buy out their interests
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  Speaker 1: or their their right to mind in this land, yeah
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  Speaker 1: wherever that might be right, Because they still didn't know,
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  Speaker 1: and honestly, I mean, that's what they're that's what they're
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  Speaker 1: angling for too. It's like they're willing to go out
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  Speaker 1: of pocket on good faith, just in the hopes that
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  Speaker 1: that will you know, be led to this magical trope
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  Speaker 1: because they're picturing a like comstock load, but the diamond version,
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  Speaker 1: you know, like they can just constantly pull precious stones
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  Speaker 1: from the earth and be uh just gazillionaires. Yeah. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and they know how to tease the money out. So
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  Speaker 1: the five big shots go to the prospectors and they say,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: all right, hey, we're gonna we just want to buy
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  Speaker 1: your share. And then at first the prospectors say, uh,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: you know, I need to think about it. I don't
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  Speaker 1: I don't feel too too good about making a decision
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  Speaker 1: right now. So they turn up the pressure and they
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: start offering them more money, and eventually Slack, who is
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  Speaker 1: kind of the at least the less outgoing of the two, says, uh,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I will, I'll sell, but I'll solve for
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  Speaker 1: a hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, fifty now and fifty after
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: we come back and bring you a third haul, right
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  Speaker 1: from from this secret mind. Um oh. Once he gets
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: the first half of the hundred grand, he and his
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  Speaker 1: buddy head back off to England to take that money
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  Speaker 1: and buy more uncut gems. Right. Uh. And this is
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: July of eighteen seventy one. They're using fake names. Uh,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: they didn't deviate too far, at least Arnold didn't. Arnold
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: became on doll and Uh Slack used his middle name,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: which was bircham Um. They bought twenty grand worth of
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: rough diamonds and rubies, spent many thousands of dollars on
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: other diamonds and rubies. Um all told. They had several
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: thousand stones that they were bringing back because they had
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: to have that wow factor. You know, this is the
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: third the third haul. They needed to show that this
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: was a producing mine and that it was worth what
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: they were being paid for it to keep the Cohn alive, right,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: exactly exactly, So there's still thirty grand up right, thirty
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: more than they had. And there's a there's an interesting
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: thing that the guy in London they buy the diamonds
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: from is a man named lee A Pold Keller. Leopold
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: remembers thinking there was something weird about this, because he says,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: I asked them where they were going to have the
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: diamonds cut, and they don't say anything, because of course
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: they have no plan to cut these. They want to
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: come up with another bag of loose stones and show
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: these Uh, businessmen in San Francisco that they have. They
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: just keep finding stuff. So they get back there it's
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: seventy one and they say, look, we'll make one more
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: trip to the diamond field. Will come back with a
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: couple of million dollars worth of stones, and then you
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: can hold that as a guarantee on your investment. So
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: they left and instead of mining the fields, they apparently
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: a salted them. And then that guy Harpending, who in
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: my mind is always the would be Confederate, Right, Harpending
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: meets their train in the town called Lathrop, California, which
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: is east of San Francisco. And he had as a
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: description of them when he sees them, right, he sure does.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: He referred to them as both travel stained and weather beaten,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: not the most flattering of descriptions. Um, and he referred
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: to their general appearance having gone through much hardship and privation.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Good good, good turns of phrase. There. Uh Slack was
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: sleeping at the time, um and Arnold was awake, and
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: he was sort of keeping watch almost right. He had
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: like his rifle, UM and that same buckskin satchel. Right, yep,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: that's correct. And they say, you know, they look like
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: they've been mining and sleeping rough and they say, we
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: have found this spot, and we do have that two
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: million dollars worth of diamonds we talked about. We divided
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: it into two packs. But here's the thing. We're crossing
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: the river. We built a raft, but we're miners, were
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: not boat rights shipwrights, and so we lost one in
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: the packs. I know it's bummer, so we just have
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: this one pack. Uh, that's probably around a million. And
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: then they hand this package to Harpending and he gives
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: them a receipt for it, which is weird, but I
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: guess that's kind of like their deposit totally. So he
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: gives them the receipt and then he takes it into
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: a ferry and he goes back across the bay to
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: San Francisco. There's actually a memoir called The Great Diamond
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Hoax and Other Stirring Incidents in the Life of Ashbury Harpending.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: That is Harpending's memoir. It's a great, convolutedly long title.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: I love it. Here's an exerpt from that. We're gonna
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: read um entirely. UM arrived at San Francisco. My carriage
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: was waiting and drove me swiftly to my home where
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the other investors were waiting. This is when they were
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: waiting for proof. We did not waste time on ceremonies.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: A sheet I don't know, he's not British, but whatever,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: a sheet was spread on my billiard table. I cut
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: the elaborate fastenings of the sack, and holding the lower corners,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: dumped the contents. It seemed like a death many colored
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: cataractive lights. Yeah, it's impressive, right, and they say, wow,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: this looks great. This is literally a sack of precious gems.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: But despite their very high opinions of their own intelligence,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: they were not complete jabrones. They said, Okay, before we
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: get any deeper in this, we're gonna take a little
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: bit of a little bit of the loot, random sampling,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: right exactly, let's say about ten percent of it, and
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: we're gonna carry it to uh, some jewelers. Actually, let's
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: find Charles Lewis Tiffany over in New York City, the
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: famous one from the salsa commercials, and uh, let's have
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: him a praise this random sample from this bag. And
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: then let's also hire a mining engineer, an actual expert,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: to check out this diamond field. Let's also let some
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: of these stones be on display in a local San
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Francisco jewelers store, and you know, kind of kind of
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: stoked the fires, what the appetite, uh, you know, make
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: the city start to desire diamonds. Yeah, So in October
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: of eights e anyone they met at this gentleman's house,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: but them of Barlow was The address was twenty three
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Street and Madison Avenue for this appraisal. And so Harpending
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: presents the diamonds and Tiffany took a look, likely through
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: his jeweler's loop. Um, and he was kind of storing
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: them into different piles. We had the sapphires, the emeralds,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: the rubies, and of course the diamonds. Uh. He was
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: described as having viewed them gravely in Harpending's memoir and
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: he really gave them a serious looking over, it, didn't he? Yeah,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: and uh, he got it wrong. Here's the Yeah, he
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: does the inspection and he says, jan driben abiond question
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: precious stone drivinrm's value. And he can't tell them how
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: much these are worth exactly until he has you know,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: some of his boys take a look. And so two
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: days later he comes back and he says that these
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: this sample of stones, just the ones he looked at,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: were worth a hundred and fifty grand Harpingdean does a
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: little math and he says, well, that sack they told
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: me was worth about a million dollars must actually be
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: worth one point five million. Here's where the scam gets
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: really interesting, because it starts like they are really benefiting
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: from some kind of random occurrences, like the best jeweler
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: in the world essentially are like one of the most
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: well known, well regarded jewelers totally borks it, you know,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: and just just really like makes the wrong call. That
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: is something that that are are huckster boys could not
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: have predicted, right, and that would have been a sign
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: for a smart scams to to get out, you know, uh,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: light out for the territories as Mark Twain. Which but
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: instead of course that they let it ride. And they
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: let it ride, so they knew that they lucked out.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: They were they were beside themselves with joy and they
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: were flushed with they were flushed with good fortune. But
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: let's for us not forget they the investors still have
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: not seen this miraculous you know diamond field, right, right,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: So at some point they are going to have to
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: see this field before they give them any more money.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: So Arnold goes back to England, presumably under a pseudonym.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: He buys more uncut gems, and then he and Slack
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: go to a little piece of nowhere on the border
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: of Colorado and Wyoming and they literally sprinkle these gems
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: that they bought just kind of on the ground. Realized
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: that's not how diamond mining works. Don't you have to
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: like hack it out of like a rock wall. You know.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: I guess they were like the closest they got to
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: actually mining was maybe an East drag hunt. Yeah, that's wild.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Just sprinkling it in the dirt, that's fantastic. Um. Yeah,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: So they take him to this this is in Wyoming,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: by the way, and um they bring the investors there finally,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: you know, it long last. It takes four days to
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: get there on horseback. Uh. They even go so far
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: as pretend that they're lost and make it real to
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: do to get here. You know, these guys are gonna
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: be like exhausted and annoyed by the time they get there,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: So maybe they'll be a little distracted, I'm thinking, is
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: what their calculus was yeah, yeah, exactly. And more importantly,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: they won't have an accurate memory of the true path
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: to this, this legendary diamond mine. So Harpending again, we're
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: using his memoir as a source here. Harpending notes that
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: eventually people got tired of it. They were kind of
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: sick of being in the saddle. They were crossed. They
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: started arguing with each other, and then finally on the
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: afternoon of June seventy two, they reach the Mesa and
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: they start looking for diamonds. Apparently Arnold was very much
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: like an adult at one of those Easter egg things,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: and he was, you know, giving them hints. He's like,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe maybe maybe go by that rock. WHOA,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: look at you. Who's my big boy, it's you, Mr
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Harbin Harbender, Harpender, Harpender. I like like, I like thinking
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: of it as being at War two where it's harp
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: and Ender Um. So yeah, they were pretty pleased. They
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: I guess we're not fully aware of how the mechanics.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you can't find in the way
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: you find gold in a stream. Maybe you can find
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: little diamonds and the dirt, and I don't know about that.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: That seems wrong. I mean, people luck out all the time. Yeah,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: that's true, that's true. I guess some could have gotten
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: knocked loose or whatever through erosion or something. Yeah, But
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: I I maintain, though, I think you're right. The majority
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: of diamonds, because of the enormous pressure they have to
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: be under to transform from coal, enormity of diamonds are
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: probably on your ground. That's why they're called diamond minds, right,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: not diamond fields. Yeah, it's like a diamond sandbox at
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: this point, which work into it at all um So
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: at this point they're relatively satisfied. Uh, they found he said,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: you know Harpening. Harpening wrote in his memoir it was
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: a diamond fast enough. Any fool could see that much.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Then we began to have all kinds of luck. For
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: more than an hour, diamonds were being found in profusion,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: together with occasional rubies, emeralds, and sapphires. Why a few
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: pearls were whoa see? Why a few pearls weren't thrown
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: in for good luck? I have never yet been able
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: to tell. Probably it wasn't oversight. That's cute. I thought,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: for a minute, I thought we were going to get
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: some pearls now. No, but everybody gets convinced, even people
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: you should know better. Jan And the mining engineer, was
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: paid at two thousand, five hundred dollar feet, and he
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: had also been guaranteed the right should he choose to
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: purchase one thousand shares of stock in this new diamond
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: venture at ten dollars a share, and Harpending later notes
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: he was wildly enthusiastic. You know, you can only watch
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: so many people just pick gems up off of the
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: ground before you think you have a good a good
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: shot at getting some of yourself. And he said to himself,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: you know, based on my experience as a mining engineer,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: the surrounding land has a pretty good chance of having
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: gems as well. So he stakes out three thousand acres,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: even though the area where Slack and Arnold were perpetrating
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: their hopes was only an acre itself. He buys three
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: thousand acres around it, and then he says, these one
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: thousand shares of stock or easily worth forty dollars each,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: and then he later sells his shares at that price,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: so he makes in addition to his engineering fee, he
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: makes thirty thousand dollars and he is the only So
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: now people who are not the con artists are making
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: money off of the con. That's how lucky these hoaxters were.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: This guy had nothing to do with it. He fell
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: for it, hook line and sinker, and he still made
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: thirty grand. Unbelievable. Yeah, you got to appreciate the hutzpah
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: of these two fellows, and just that they were able
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: to kind of like Bob and weave and go with
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: the flow to keep it going, you know. And so
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: everybody else finishes up their Easter egg hunt and they say, okay,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: we gotta leave some people behind the guard the site.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: They leave one of the con artists, Slack. They need
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: to leave another fellow Rubery and they're supposed to guard
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: the site, but they don't get along with each other,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: so in a couple of days they Scedattle as well.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: We never learned what happened to Slack. He disappears from
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: the historical record, but his family legacy carried on when
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: they invented a very popular messaging system. Yeah, yeah, it's true.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: That is a direct result of the Diamond hoax of
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy two. Way, who whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa, whoa,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: I know what's happening. Yes, I know what's happening. Here
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: are you feeling it? I think the listeners are probably
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: feeling it. Yeah, where there's no way we're going to
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: get this done in one episode. Yeah, we probably could,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: since podcast is a is sort of a time you know,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: there's no time restrictions on podcast. It's all we impose
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: upon it ourselves. Yeah. But like Dan Carlin Hardcore History,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: which is a fantastic show that guy goes on for
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: like hours, that's a good point. You gotta you gotta
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: have standards, You gotta set boundaries, and by golly, we're
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: gonna do that today by making this one another two parter.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Please don't be upset. Um, we wanted to take President's
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: day off. Is that that? Come on? You can't hold
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: that against well. Also, we wanted to tell the whole story,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: and I'm sorry it's mainly about that. It would be
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: it would be an hour plus long episode. But we
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: want to thank you so much as always for tuning in.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: This concludes part one of the Great die In Hoax
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: of eighteen seventy two. Stay tuned for part two. Uh.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: We especially recommend Ridiculous Historians, where you can meet our
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: favorite part of the show, your fellow listeners. You know, Ben,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: I would say anything with great in the title deserves
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: the two partner. There we go. Yeah, huge, Thanks to
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Casey Pegram, super producer, Exhordan Are, Alex Williams who composed
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: our theme, Christopher Haciotis, Jonathan Strickland, everyone, God, Bill Murray.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Um Uh tupac tupac was cool. Uh, let's see, I'm
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: thinking fran Dresser, you love friend Dresser. I've yeah, oh
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: man doing a new thing. I heard one time years
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: ago she uh, she tried to pay for dinner at
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: a fancy restaurant with autograph pictures of herself. I don't
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: think that currency holds up. I don't know. Man. If
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: I had been working at the restaurant, I would have
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: been like, thank you, this is amazing. What's the conversion
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: rate of fran Dresser autograph pick to dollar? I'd what
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: what price can you put on joy? Really is what? Uh? No,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Uh they do have an I think she has a
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: new show out. But yeah, thanks you friend Drescher. We
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: squashed the beef with Cheryl Crowe, So thank you to you,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: Mrs Crowe. Uh. Leonard Nimoy, he's cool. I'm just naming people.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: The Golden Girls Leonard Leonard Cohen, great one. Yeah uh.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: And thanks to you, Noel Hey. Thanks to you Bett.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts for
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows