Great Diamond Hoax, The

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The fantastic story of this ambitious scheme which defrauded many of the country's financial and commercial leaders of the time. Harpending was accused by many of masterminding the scheme. This book is his defense. His version is generally accepted to be truthful, but the great "Diamond Mine Swindle' continues to be a mystery to historians. The 'other stirring events' contain a lot of Western material. Harpending connived to switch California and Nevada (with their rich gold and silver mines) to the side of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Harpending claims to tell the "whole truth" about his part in a diamond swindle as well as other questionable doings in early California. One of the West's more notable entrepreneurial rogues, Harpending conceived and executed his notorious scheme during the early 1870's, selling shares in a "salted" diamond mine in a cleverly conceived pyramid operation which netted his original sponsors $600,000 on an initial investment of only $35,000 while duping scores of other fortune seekers.