Gold Rush Days - Day 9 - 21 Day Family Connections Experiment

It's Day 8 of my 21 Day Family Connections Experiment.

These and other old stock certificates were framed and hung on our 'rec room' walls. I don't remember what year dad fixed up part of the basement for my brother and I and our friends. I do remember playing there when I was first in school, but a few years after that he panelled the walls to make it look a little nicer (it was probably warmer then too) and that's when he built himself a little office.  

We had a ping pong table in there, and an older record player. And a sofa and my grandparents' old dining room table and chairs. 

I doubt we gave the certificates much thought, although I knew what they were. Dad said by then they were just for looking at. 

Sometime in the 60s - the 1960s - Dad and I went to the Public Library in downtown Vancouver and researched most of them. He wanted to know if any companies had been bought out, as the certificates might then be worth something after all. We did find a couple which I believe he sold. I thought the research was fun, and I will say, I remember the librarians in the business section were very helpful! 

He was philosophical about the certificates that weren't worth anything except as pretty paper. But some of these he'd known about through his early employment. In 1937 and 1938 when these shares were bought, he was working for A. J. Smith. Arthur J. Smith was Finance Editor for the Vancouver Sun for some time and well known in the city. He had opened a new company by 1937 as A. J. Smith, Seasoned Securities, 829 W. Pender. The previous company, Smith, A. J. & Co. Ltd. continued under other management, 481 Howe St.

Zeballos Gold Peak Mines Limited. Incorporated in British Columbia, Canada. 

100 Shares bought January 1938 by George W. Rogers (my father). 

Lightning Creek Gold Mines Limited, Incorporated in British Columbia, Canada. 100 Shared bought April 1937 by Joseph Rogers (my grandfather).

These particular certificates are more interesting to me as history than as 'collectable paper'. Mining, especially gold mining, has always been important in BC, and its allure is enduring. 

Both these mining locations have had lots of interest over the years. Zeballos is on northwest Vancouver Island. Even the early Spanish explorers may have searched for gold there.  And Lightning Creek is in BC's Cariboo gold rush area, near Barkerville, taken up fully with mining claims in the 1860s. 

Charles Unverzagt, brother of Jonas T Unverzagt who signed the 1937 certificate, had worked there from the 1910s under the company name: Lightning Creek Gold Gravels and Drainage Co. (See "Annual Review of the Mining Industry", The Nelson Daily News, Nelson, BC, Tuesday, 3 January, 1911, page 10.) 

By the 1930s, the town area was known as Wingdam. The BC Archives has photographs showing some of the operations there, apparently all from the 1930s. If you follow this link later and search the 1937 BC Directory for Wingdam, you will see why people were optimistic about mining there then.

And another company, Omineca Mining, is working in that area now. See The Wingdam Gold Project.

BC Archives photograph, Item E-04520 - Wingdam. Keystone Drill In Operation At The Mine, Consolidated Gold Alluvials of BC, dated 1937. Photographer unknown. See other photographs on the BC Archives website. Jonas T. Unverzagt was President of Consolidated Gold, and the same B. M. Richardson was Secretary.

Now, even with the shutdown, it is much easier to research older companies in British Columbia. I did consider using the Zeballos certificate for the Z entry in this year's A-Z blogging challenge to show this. But there's still more in the BC Archives! Watch for an article on this topic later this year.


For more about the 21 Day Family Connections Experiment, see my first Experiment article here.