Archive Record
Images
Metadata
Catalog number |
1997.2.1829 |
Object Name |
Clipping, Newspaper |
Date |
1964 |
Description |
TITLE:$700 Quicksilver Inspiring Miners AUTHOR: Dick Barrett PUBLISHER: [San Jose Mercury News] [1964] You've been reading a lot in the papers lately about the shortage of silver - so great that the government has decided to debase much of the coinage. But at the same time another metal of longstanding importance to Santa Clara County has been quietly making news, too. The price of quicksilver has soared to a dizzying height of $700 per 76-pound flask on the metals market recently, which is good news to the men who are scratching out cinnabar at New Almaden and Guadalupe. The New Almaden diggings are owned by a syndicate which includes among others, P.S. (Jimmie) Schneider of Los Gatos, longtime New Almaden figure. Some 20 separate operations are under way there, paying royalties to the syndicate. The largest is a four-man group operating in the rich San Francisco shaft, burning the ore in a furnace owned by Andy Camilleri, the pet shop man. A rich deposit at Guadalupe is being mined by John Gargin, who has been at it for the past year. New Almaden has been producing continously for the past 10 years after a lapse caused by low prices. (In 1948 mercury, was selling for $80 a flask and only one mine in the country was operating, according to-Schneider.) Production at New Almaden has been running at about 800 flasks a year. This is considerably below the output at Almaden, Spain, which the Schneiders visited recently in company with the Charles Haywards of Los Gatos. The mine there is putting out 200 flasks a day and is running at only half capacity. It has been in production since the year 200 B.C. The top of the ore body is 1200 feet down, the bottom about 1500, and the end of the supply is not in sight. The character of the country is rolling, more nearly resembling the terrain around Paso Robles near our New Almaden. What has sparked rocketing price? "World demand keeps climbing," Jimmie Schneider says. The vast expansion of the chemical and electronics industries are mainly responsible for upping the market. For example, a process for producing chlorine and caustic soda with mercury cells has been developed. Europeans are converting their plants - increasing the need for mercury at the same time that a lot of old works are petering out. "But don't talk about the high price of quicksilver," says Jimmie. "Talk about what the government has been up to. In the mid-1950's the General Service Administration started stockpiling mercury and bought 200,000 flasks. It acquired 56,000 flasks bartering cotton with Spain and Italy Production in this country went down to 13,000 flasks last year. So what did the government do with its stockpile? At the end of last year the price was $490 a flask. The government released 10,000 flasks at $430, and two weeks ago another 10,000 at only $470, some $230 below the market. The mercury went to the chemical industry, and Jimmie sees this as subsidizing already prosperous companies at the expense of the taxpayers. "I think we could double our production," Jimmie says. But uncertainty over what the government will do next is giving the miners pause. So far, all the mining has been done underground to preserve the surface for possible future real estate development. Paul Mariani Jr., a member of the syndicate, points out that the city limits of San Jose, taking in Del Webb's development around the Almaden Country Club, now border the mine property. The syndicate purchased the land as an investment with the thought that it would soon prove attractive to a developer, but it is re-evaluating the situation at the moment. One thing is sure. The present price is bound to start prospectors scratching all over the West for new deposits, and if production rises the law of supply and demand will start operating again. In the meantime, the red stuff the Indians painted on their faces before the settlers came is looking not only romantic but rich. |
People |
Camilleri, Andy Gargin, John Mariani, Paul A., Jr. Schneider, Jimmie |
Cataloged by |
Boudreault, Art |