Chicago, Saginaw and Canada Railroad Co. - 1873 dated $1,000 Railway Gold Bond
Inv# RB5901 Bond
Michigan
$1,000, £200 Uncanceled Gold Bond printed by National Bank-Note Co., New York. All coupons remain. Relating to the Chicago, Saginaw and Canada Railroad Co. Bonds:
A historical bond fraud case in point involves bonds issued by the Chicago, Saginaw and Canada Railroad Co. (CS&C). It has been alleged that these securities are payable by us in gold. We neither issued these bonds, nor are they payable in gold, backed, or guaranteed by us or any other part of the United States Government. In 1873, CS&C issued 5,500 thirty-year gold-backed bearer bonds, paying seven percent interest to finance construction of a proposed railroad. Click to view a full-size image of a CS&C bond (99K JPG file, uploaded 1/24/98).
CS&Cs creditors forced it into bankruptcy in 1876 and a predecessor of CSX Transportation, Inc. ("CSX") purchased its assets. CSXs predecessor did not assume any of CS&Cs outstanding debt, including the railroad bonds. All claims to money due under the bonds, which had a face value of $1,000 each, were resolved 112 years ago in the 1876 bankruptcy proceeding. At that time, investors presented their bonds for payment out of funds from the foreclosure sale and received a distribution amounting to less than 25 cents on the dollar. After the bankruptcy proceeding, the bonds remained in court archives until they were discovered in the basement of a federal building. A museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan, packaged the bonds with other historical information about this railroad for sale as collector's items for $29.95 each. Despite what a bogus valuation (104K JPG file, file uploaded 1/24/98) might claim about CS&C bonds, the bonds have no value other than as collectible memorabilia, since CSX has disclaimed any liability for redemption of these bonds, and they are most certainly not payable in gold. See Adams (26K TXT file, uploaded 9/28/98); 31 U.S.C. § 5118(d)(2) (2.5K TXT file, uploaded 9/28/98).
Courts have held that the CS&C bonds have only nominal value as collectibles. See Schneider (22K TXT file, uploaded 9/25/98) (preliminary injunction entered against defendants; bonds have "no value, except that of a collectible"). Similarly, other courts have found that bonds issued in the 1800s by the East Alabama & Cincinnati Railroad Co. and the Marietta & Northern Georgia Railway lack any investment value. See SEC v. Dobbins (C.D. Cal. March 9, 1998) (complaint)(13K TXT file, uploaded 9/25/98); SEC v. Dobbins (C.D. Cal. May 19, 1998) (8.5K TXT file, uploaded 9/25/98) (findings on order to show cause re: preliminary injunction); SEC v. Dobbins (C.D. Cal. May 19, 1998) (preliminary injunction) (7.6K TXT file, uploaded 9/25/98); Infinity Group, 993 F. Supp. at 330(28K TXT file, uploaded 9/28/98). Read more at https://www.treasurydirect.gov/laws-and-regulations/fraud/historical-bond-fraud/#id-chicago--saginaw-and-canada-railroad-co--bonds-210711
A bond is a document of title for a loan. Bonds are issued, not only by businesses, but also by national, state or city governments, or other public bodies, or sometimes by individuals. Bonds are a loan to the company or other body. They are normally repayable within a stated period of time. Bonds earn interest at a fixed rate, which must usually be paid by the undertaking regardless of its financial results. A bondholder is a creditor of the undertaking.
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