Historical bond rates
Historical bonds are those bonds that were once valid obligations of American entities but are now worthless as securities, are quickly becoming a favorite tool of scam artists. Here are several things that you should know about them:
Types of Historical Bonds Used for Fraud
Although all sorts of historical bonds are collected and traded, historical railroad bonds comprise most of the bonds used to perpetrate fraud. Historical railroad bonds commonly used by scam artists include those issued by the Chicago, Saginaw, and Canada Railroad Co., the East Alabama and Cincinnati Railroad Co., the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad Co., the Galveston, Houston & Henderson Railroad Co. and the Richmond, and York River Railroad Co. These railroad bonds are but a few of the 12, 000 to 15, 000 varieties of historical railroad bonds that are known to exist. Non-railroad historical bonds commonly used by scam artists include bonds issued by the Noonday Mining Co.
Lies Used
Lie: Historical bonds are payable in gold.
Fact: Historical bonds are not payable in gold.
Historical bonds are not valid obligations. Even if they were valid obligations, they would not be payable in gold because gold clauses in bonds issued before 1977 are unenforceable in U.S. courts. Adams v. Burlington Northern R.R. Co., 80 F.3d 1377, 1380 (9th Cir. 1996)(26K TXT file, uploaded 9/28/98); 31 U.S.C. § 5118(d)(2) (2.5K TXT file, uploaded 9/28/98).
Lie: Historical bonds are backed by the Treasury Department.
Fact: Historical bonds are not and have never been backed by us.
While historical bonds often have the words "United States of America" printed on them, these references were merely to identify the bonds as issued by entities located in the United States. Nowhere on historical bonds are there any statements that the bonds are issued or backed by us or any other part of the United States Government. Only in limited and well-known circumstances have we guaranteed obligations issued by private parties, for example, the bonds issued by the Chrysler Corporation in the early 1980s.
Lie: The Treasury Department has established a federal sinking fund to retire historical bonds.
Fact: There is no federal sinking fund to retire historical bonds.
As these historical bonds were neither issued nor backed by us or any other part of the United States Government, it would be patently absurd to suggest that we would establish a sinking fund to retire these historical bonds.