Reed Waddell and the goldbrick
Reed Waddell was a man who liked to gamble at cards and horses but wasn’t very good at it, so he supported his gambling habit by working as a con artist. Waddell used several tried and true cons, including the sale of properties not owned by him such as the Brooklyn Bridge and others, and worked with accomplices to support his schemes. He is credited, if that is the right word, with developing the gold brick scheme.
Waddell set up an accomplice as an assayer – a person who evaluated the worth of gold, silver, jewels, and other items – in an office with all of the necessary accouterments of the trade, including scales, weights, and chemicals. In New York of 1880, there were many reputable places where gold could be evaluated for worth, including Tiffany, but Waddell was undeterred, convinced that the thought of easy money would surpass reason on the part of his mark.
Waddell then approached his victim offering to sell him a gold brick. In reality, the brick was of lead, with several layers of thin gold plate covering it, finished roughly, and stamped with the markings of a bank or the United States government. The assayer’s name was also stamped on the bar. This led Waddell’s target to believe that he was being offered a brick which had been evaluated by the US government. Waddell sold the first of these bricks for $4,000.
To convince his target of his honesty, Waddell would take him to the assayer’s office where his accomplice would confirm the quality and value of the gold, and usually express his astonishment that it was being offered at the price which Waddell had named. Using this scam Waddell pocketed over a quarter of a million dollars by the end of the decade, selling gold-plated lead bricks for prices ranging from $2,500 to $7,500 per brick.
Waddell moved his operation to Paris in the 1890s and found similar success there until he got into a confrontation with another American con artist working in France, Tom O’Brien. At first, the two men were partners, but when O’Brien discovered that Waddell had also been swindling him he took umbrage and shot Waddell several times, killing him. The French sent O’Brien to Devil’s Island in 1896, and despite reports that he was alive in New Caledonia many years later, his eventual fate is a mystery.
Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“Hoaxes and Scams: A Compendium of Deceptions, Ruses, and Swindles”, by Carl Sifakis, 2005
“Fanny Brice: The Original Funny Girl”, by Herbert G. Goldman, 1993
“Sympathetic Banking”, by Henry A. Clapp, The Atlantic Monthly, July 1881
“The Smoothest Con Man That Ever Lived”, by Gilbert King, Smithsonian Magazine, August 2012
“The Truth Behind The Lies Of The Original Welfare Queen”, by Gene Demby, NPR, December 2013
“For you, half price”, by Gabriel Cohen, The New York Times, November 27, 2005