Someone tried to sell Big Ben..................

[Tracey]

In tonights newspaper London Lite (a freebie)

In the Twenties, Scotsman conman Arthur Ferguson sold several English landmarks to wealthy but gullible Americans, including Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace and Big Ben (he took a deposit of £1000). He moved to America and continued scamming until he was jailed after trying to sell the Statue of Liberty.



More from Google

...................In 1924, a Scottish conman by the name of Arthur Ferguson succeeded in extracting from a wealthy American businessman a down payment of £6,000 on Nelson's Column. Ferguson had met his victim in Trafalgar Square and convinced him that it was being sold to reduce the national debt and that he was the estate agent charged with effecting the top-secret sale.
Emboldened by his crime, Ferguson went on to con other tourists out of a £1,000 downpayment on Big Ben and a £2,000 deposit for Buckingham Palace, before heading for America, where he was caught trying to sell the Statue of Liberty to an Australian tourist

It finally dawned on Ferguson that America was indeed the land of opportunity, and so he emigrated there in 1925. He sold the White House to a rancher on the installment plan for yearly payments of $100,000 USD, and tried to sell the Statue of Liberty to a visiting Australian, who went to the police. The authorities had been looking for the mysterious salesman of public landmarks, and Ferguson went to jail, to be released in 1930. He profitably continued his trade in Los Angeles until his death in 1938.

.......................k

[pinkshoes]

Re: Someone tried to sell Big Ben ... ...

Bet that caused a right ding dong



Best wishes
Pinkshoes

[Thrall]

Big Ben - that´s real estate! Just to put a tentative oar in, an Icelandic poet and entrepeneur, Einar Benediktsson (1864-1940) almost managed to sell the Aurora Borealis in London. He was later so much revered, mainly, I must add, for his poetry, that his housekeeper had a special dispensation fom parliament to brew and distill, so his last years could be more tolerable.

As they say, "it just goes to show".

Whisky may not cure the common cold..
but it fails more agreeably than most other things.

Thrall.

[emanday]

Whisky may not cure the common cold..
but it fails more agreeably than most other things.Thrall.

Never was a truer word spoke