Earle Gray's Blog - Posts Tagged "speculation"
Oil shares are wallpaper when bubble bursts: CANADIAN NUGGETS
Calgarians in 1913 and 1914 were gripped for months by oil fever as a “wildcat� well drilling in the Rocky Mountain foothills at Turner Valley, 30 miles southwest of the city, teased speculators with tantalizing indications that this could be Alberta’s first real oil field. When a flow of oil was finally struck in mid-May, 1914, the Albertan newspaper was even more gushing than the well. “It was the wildest, most delirious, must uproarious, most exciting time that had ever entered into human imagination to conceive,� the Albertan newspaper reported.
The News Telegram more cautiously warned that the city “had a population of 80,000 people, mostly lunatics.�
They were crazy to buy shares offered by promoters in some 500 hastily-incorporated “oil companies� that had acquired petroleum rights somewhere or other in southern Alberta. “All day and all night the crowds fought and struggled for precedence in the offices of the most prominent oil companies,� the Calgary Herald reported. “There was never a moment when the would be purchasers were not lined up three deep, buying, buying, buying.� In the satirical Eye Opener, Bob Edwards complained that “you are never sure whether the man you meet on the street is a multi-millionaire, or just a common millionaire.�
The discovery well turned out to be no bonanza. During the next 10 years, the new Turner Valley oil field produced only a trickle of oil � less than 66,000 barrels. Later wells would drill deeper, in the 1920’s and 30’s to find truly great quantities of oil and natural gas, making Turner Valley the largest oil field in what was still called the British Empire.
Meanwhile, fewer than 50 of the 500 companies formed in 1913 and 1914 actually drilled any wells, and very few of these found any oil or gas. Calgarians were wiped clean of more than $1 million of their savings. Some of the thousands of worthless share certificates were used to wallpaper homes and the lobby of at least one hotel.
TAGS: Petroleum industry, Stock market, Financial bubble, Calgary, Turner Valley, Speculation.
The News Telegram more cautiously warned that the city “had a population of 80,000 people, mostly lunatics.�
They were crazy to buy shares offered by promoters in some 500 hastily-incorporated “oil companies� that had acquired petroleum rights somewhere or other in southern Alberta. “All day and all night the crowds fought and struggled for precedence in the offices of the most prominent oil companies,� the Calgary Herald reported. “There was never a moment when the would be purchasers were not lined up three deep, buying, buying, buying.� In the satirical Eye Opener, Bob Edwards complained that “you are never sure whether the man you meet on the street is a multi-millionaire, or just a common millionaire.�
The discovery well turned out to be no bonanza. During the next 10 years, the new Turner Valley oil field produced only a trickle of oil � less than 66,000 barrels. Later wells would drill deeper, in the 1920’s and 30’s to find truly great quantities of oil and natural gas, making Turner Valley the largest oil field in what was still called the British Empire.
Meanwhile, fewer than 50 of the 500 companies formed in 1913 and 1914 actually drilled any wells, and very few of these found any oil or gas. Calgarians were wiped clean of more than $1 million of their savings. Some of the thousands of worthless share certificates were used to wallpaper homes and the lobby of at least one hotel.
TAGS: Petroleum industry, Stock market, Financial bubble, Calgary, Turner Valley, Speculation.
A Cat Ranch To Skin Calgarians: CANADIAN NUGGTS
When Calgarians stampeded in 1913 and 1914 to buy what became largely worthless shares in fly-by-night oil companies, those thought to be unlucky enough to miss out were offered an alternative investment opportunity � shares in a cat and rat ranch � in this spoof by a reader, published in the Albertan.
Seeing by The Albertan that there is not going to be oil stock enough to go round to all the investors, perhaps some of those having money to invest in a profitable undertaking would be pleased to know of our company.
We expect to operate a large cat ranch near Sedgewick, Alberta, where the best farming land in the province can be bought, at least the surface rights, which will be all we need, for less than the oil barons would ask for the mineral rights.
Now to start we will collect, say, 100,000 cats, each cat will average 12 kittens a year which will means 1,200,000 skins. The skins will sell from 10 to 15 cents for the white ones and 75 cents for the jet black ones, making an average price of 30 cents apiece, thus making our revenue about $10,000 a day gross. A man can skin 50 cats a day and he will charge $2 for this labor. It will take 100 men to operate the ranch, therefore our profit will be about $9,800 per day.
We will feed the cats on rats and will start a rat ranch adjoining the cat ranch. The rats will multiply four times as fast as the cats so if we start with say 1,000,000 rats we will have four rats a day for each cat, which is plenty. We will feed the cats on the rats and in turn will feed the rats on the stripped carcasses of the cats, thus giving each rat one-fourth of a cat. It will be seen by these figures that the business will be self acting and automatic. The cats will eat the rats and the rats will eat the cats and we will get the skins.
TAGS: Financial bubble, petroleum industry, speculation, satire, spoof, stock market, cat ranch, Calgary, Turner Valley, Earle Gray, About Canada, ISBN 9781895589955,
Seeing by The Albertan that there is not going to be oil stock enough to go round to all the investors, perhaps some of those having money to invest in a profitable undertaking would be pleased to know of our company.
We expect to operate a large cat ranch near Sedgewick, Alberta, where the best farming land in the province can be bought, at least the surface rights, which will be all we need, for less than the oil barons would ask for the mineral rights.
Now to start we will collect, say, 100,000 cats, each cat will average 12 kittens a year which will means 1,200,000 skins. The skins will sell from 10 to 15 cents for the white ones and 75 cents for the jet black ones, making an average price of 30 cents apiece, thus making our revenue about $10,000 a day gross. A man can skin 50 cats a day and he will charge $2 for this labor. It will take 100 men to operate the ranch, therefore our profit will be about $9,800 per day.
We will feed the cats on rats and will start a rat ranch adjoining the cat ranch. The rats will multiply four times as fast as the cats so if we start with say 1,000,000 rats we will have four rats a day for each cat, which is plenty. We will feed the cats on the rats and in turn will feed the rats on the stripped carcasses of the cats, thus giving each rat one-fourth of a cat. It will be seen by these figures that the business will be self acting and automatic. The cats will eat the rats and the rats will eat the cats and we will get the skins.
TAGS: Financial bubble, petroleum industry, speculation, satire, spoof, stock market, cat ranch, Calgary, Turner Valley, Earle Gray, About Canada, ISBN 9781895589955,
