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Auction: 319 - Bonds and Share Certificates of the Americas
Lot: 3440

Royal Copper Mines of Cobre, five shares of £40 each, [1836], black on yellow stained vellum and one share of £40, [1836], #6197, black on pink stained vellum,Ltd, together with Royal Copper Mines of Cobre Ltd., 10 shares of £50, 186[7], #347, scrollwork to left, red seal, black on pink paper; the last EF and others F-VF. (3)

Mining copper at El Cobre stretches back to at least the sixteenth century. The rich mines in the south east of Cuba were worked for almost three centuries by slave labour and free people of colour by the Spanish buthad fallen into disuse by the time they attracted the attention of British investors who had obtained samples of the waste from the mines in the 1830's. This and the Royal Santiago Mining Company looked to Cornwall for their labour and indeed the steam engines already working there.

Sold for
$550