Retired professor donates mining stock bonds to University of Idaho

Earl Bennett is a Genesee resident, a former Idaho geologist and former University of Idaho professor.

He is also a scripophilist — that is, someone who collects stock certificates. In particular, he collects stock certificates related to the Idaho mining industry.

He has collected 1,500 stock certificates over the course of approximately 25 years. In total, they are worth an estimated $60,000.

“I got interested in them because for the 32 years I worked at the University of Idaho as a state geologist and head of the state (geological) survey, I was very interested in ore deposits in the mines in Idaho,” he said. “In the process of doing that, I started collecting these stock certificates on Idaho companies.”

Bennett knows this is a niche collection that others may find boring. Those willing to learn about it and listen to his wealth of knowledge about the subject, however, will find that Bennett’s collection adds significant value to the history of Idaho industry.

Until about the 1980s, Bennett said, a paper certificate was issued to every person who bought stock in a mining company.

“The companies were not required to keep them, but they did, because they were the only legal document they had about that particular sale,” he said.

They contain information such as the identity of the company’s president, when the stock was issued and who owned it.

Dulce Kersting-Lark, head of Special Collections and Archives at the University of Idaho Library, said many of the mines represented in Bennett’s collection were short-lived and located in remote parts of the state.

“And when you have documentation of who the president was and who bought the certificates, it might likely be the only place that’s ever written down,” she said, referring to the stock certificates. “You can’t just Google, ‘Who was the president of this mine in 1915?’ That is not easily searchable information, so the value of a primary source like this truly is unique and irreplaceable and you’re not going to find the information in other places.”

Bennett said Lewiston resident Henry Hinck donated an even bigger collection of Idaho mining stock certificates to the Idaho Historical Society. Altogether, Bennett estimated that he and Hinck have collected documentation on 90% of all mining companies in Idaho’s history that issued certificates. It also includes certificates from companies that owned shares in mines, such as Standard Oil.

Bennett said these stock certificates were essentially worthless decades ago when companies stopped issuing them. Over time, though, collectors grew more interested in them and their value began to rise.

The UI Library sees the historical value in Bennett’s collection. On Tuesday, Bennett donated his 15 binders of stock certificates to the library, as well as a digitized copy of his collection.

“For anybody who’s interested in the industrial history of Idaho or more and more the environmental history of Idaho, having access to this information is really essential,” Kersting-Lark said.

Kersting-Lark may not have been familiar with scripophily when Bennett first told her about his collection, but she trusted the man who is an emeritus trustee of the Idaho State Historical Society.

“I knew that what we were getting was in fact special, and I trust that he knows what he’s talking about,” she said.

Kuipers can be reached at akuipers@dnews.com.