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The Phantom Fox of Cobalt.
Canada , Silver Dollar (.9999 fine), 2003 Obverse: Dora de Pédery-Hunt (designer); ? (modeller)Reverse: John Mardon (designer); ? (modeller) Stats: Weight = 25.175 grams; Diameter = 36.07mm; Edge = Reeded Issue: Frosted relief proofs = 125,000 @ $33.95 issue price Brilliant relief BUs = 75,000 @ $24.95 issue price Blacksmith Fred LaRose may have previously disliked foxes intensely but in 1903 he would no doubt have come to hold them in the highest regard. After all, he became very wealthy because of one - that wasn't even there at the time! In September, 1903, the Ontario Northland Railway was inching north by the west shore of Long Lake (since renamed Cobalt Lake ). Late one evening, a blacksmith in the construction gang's employ, Fred Larose, thought he saw the eyes of a fox glowing from the darkness and hurled his hammer at the pesky animal. The throw surprisingly resulted in a clang instead of the anticipated (and hoped-for) thunk . In retrieving his tool, LaRose discovered that the glowing "eyes" were actually spots of shiny mineral in a rocky ledge. Furthermore, there was lots of it. LaRose lost no time in registering a claim on the deposit and his legendary strike would be the precursor of the development of the world's richest silver deposit. This is not to say that there had been no previous discoveries in the area. On August 7, 1903, two contractors for the same railway, - J.H. McKinley and Ernest Darraugh - cruising timber on the far shore of Long Lake for railway ties, had already come across rocks on the lakeshore glittering with silver and within months had opened Cobalt's first silver mine. Yet another railway employee, Tom Herbert, prospecting in his spare time on nearby Nipissing Hill, found another lode.
But it was LaRose who had found the main local deposit. Samples of all these strikes passed through the hands of Dr. W.G. Miller, the provincial geologist, and it was through him that word reached the outside world. It was also he who gave Cobalt its name since there was a considerable amount of this metal mixed with the silver. From Mattawa came the monied men: Timmins , the McMartin brothers and Dave Dunlap, the latter of whom paid LaRose $30,000 for his claim. These became the Silver Kings and still other discoveries by Trethewey and Coniagas set off a "Silver Rush" in 1905, a major result being the additional strikes in the Gowganda, Kirkland Lake and Porcupine areas - not just silver but gold, nickel and other minerals as well. Within the next decade, the Cobalt area produced $300-million worth of metal (to date, a phenomenal 460-million ounces of silver) and the local population stood at 30,000. During the earliest exploitation of the ore body, only the best ore was processed; low grade was unceremoniously dumped in Cobalt Lake to await secondary extraction in later years. By 1935, Cobalt was in severe decline but directly after WWII, things picked up as the heretofore "impurity" in the silver, cobalt, became valuable in its own right. A steel-grey, iron-like metal, cobalt is required in the manufacture of permanent magnets and magnet-steel alloys. It is also important in the production of high-speed, high-heat drilling tools. The heat-resistant alloys used in the aero-space industry contain up to 66% cobalt. In the 1960s, Canada was producing 1500 to 2000 tons of cobalt, most of which was being recovered from other ores in the general Cobalt area.
The "LaRose Mine", ca 1910.
It's entirely appropriate that the Royal Canadian Mint should have chosen the centenary of Fred LaRose's silver discovery at Cobalt as the subject for their 2003 "Silver Dollar of the Year". It's doubly appropriate that for the first time, such a commemorative dollar was struck in essentially pure silver (or at least but 1 part impurity in 10,000).
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January 2007The Woods/Highway Dairy of Sandwick, B.C The Cyprus Emergency Shilling Note, 1919
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