A quiz question · medium
How much did the Hannum syndicate pay for a three-quarter share of the Cardiff Giant in October 1869?
The syndicate paid $37,500 on 23 October 1869, a week after the staged 'discovery.' P. T. Barnum offered $50,000 a week later. When the syndicate refused, Barnum simply built his own replica.
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The Ten-Foot Stone Statue That an Atheist Buried on a Farm to Prove a Point and Was Then Bought by a Syndicate for $37,500 George Hull, a New York cigar-maker and atheist, had a ten-foot gypsum statue carved in Chicago in 1868 to mock the biblical line "there were giants in the earth in those days." He buried it on his cousin's farm at Cardiff, New York, and had it "discovered" in October 1869. A syndicate bought a three-quarter share for $37,500 within a month. P. T. Barnum tried to buy it. Hull confessed in December 1869.
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