Identifying 100-year-old Mining Preferred Shares

Identifying 100-year-old Mining Preferred Shares

by Rob

The Miners' Union Unravels a 100-Year-Old Mystery of Shindig Mining Preferred Shares

We think a little brevity is needed in light of the recent crypto-recession. The Miners' Union will often receive emails asking if we want to buy concrete in bulk, or whether we can help consult on copper mines in South America. We're usually willing to help as much as our expertise will allow, conceding that while we are in fact cryptocurrency miners, we're still your friendly neighborhood miners. Today we want to share a story about mining preferred shares in Shindig Mining, Limited that we were able to successfully uncover which proved quite interesting.

Virginia S had written to us asking us if we could help her in identifying and valuing some rather old preferred shares in a mining company. With our finger poised over the spam button, we decided to investigate.

Preferred Shares in Shindig Mines, Limited

Preferred Shares in Shindig Mines, Limited

non-transferable Shindig Mining Preferred Shares

We assumed this was the trappings of an email marketing scam, that Virginia was some sort of Nigerian Prince, or soldier from Afghanistan asking a random private citizen for help repatriating funds plundered overseas (we really do get those emails periodically having been found in an "airport directory from using their free wifi"). Though upon closer inspection, the true story of these shares presented themselves.

So what are Shindig Mining Preferred Shares?

At first glance, it looks like one preferred share to a company called “Shindig Mining, Limited”. If you look more closely, you can see that the certificate entitles the holder to, “one excellent evening of exploration”. It appears to be a rather cleverly designed invitation to an event hosted by the sophomore class of the University of Minnesota School of Mines way back in 1927. Perhaps it was a school project, having recently had lectures on how to fund and operate mining operations, students fired up the printing press to make mock preferred shares as a project. I presume the President of the student body - W.J. - was the one who promised his peers “one grand evening of diversion” at the Minnesota Union. It was probably a crazy night to remember if someone held onto this invitation this long. There were over 300 people invited, according to the numbering scheme in the bottom corner of the shares.

Tl;dr - We don’t believe it has any inherent value, but may have sentimental value to either you and your family, or the U Minnesota School of Mines as a historical keepsake (the School was eventually folded into the departments of chemical engineering and materials science in 1970).

Virginia was nice enough to donate some of her limited supply of preferred shares to us, having confirmed her grandfather was in fact a student of the UM School of Mines and that our sleuthing added up. You can find them hanging at our headquarters in South Florida to remind us of all those miners that came before us.

Thanks Virginia!

-The Miners' Union