[Oil]

[Business Archive of Mid-20th-Century, Western Oil and Mining Investment Ephemera]

[Mystic, Ct. 1946-1954]. Approximately 210 individual documents of varying lengths. Light wear. Overall, very good. Item #1607

Post-World War II business archive of George Deneke, an Old Mystic, Connecticut, resident who invested heavily in oil and mining operations in the Western United States and Canada. Present here are well over 200 individual documents documents relating to numerous ventures in which Deneke had an interest or for which he had requested information. Included are large group of over fifty documents concerning the notorious Canadian stock scheme, Gaspe Oil Ventures Limited, which in 1954 the New York state Attorney General called "the largest fraud case in 15 years." Also here are about thirty items relating to the Landowners' Royalties Company, a curious husband and wife operation based in Framingham, New Mexico, that offered wildcat investment opportunities in Montana's Williston Basin, of which there is a large and detailed map. Another sizable and attractive map depicts "Oil in the Rockies, August 1953," and there is also a fascinating map showing the fields of the South Texas Oil Co. in the early 1950s. A sizable subset of documents provides information regarding uranium mining in Utah, which enjoyed a significant boom in the years after the war. With ephemera relating to at least a dozen additional businesses across the West and Canada, much with captivating illustrated material.

Price: $650.00