History of the Chivor Emerald Mine, Part II (1924-1970): Between Insolvency and Viability

Abstract

GEMS & GEMOLOGY SUMMER 2020 Many legends are told about the history of the Chivor emerald mine.1 The story begins with the sporadic working of the Colombian mine by indigenous people before being sought out by Spanish conquistadores in the first half of the sixteenth century. The property was exploited by the Spanish in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and then forgotten in the jungle for a period of more than two centuries after 1672. Schmetzer et al. (2020) chronicled the first part of the modern era commencing after the 200-year break, covering from 1880 to 1925. During that interval, Colombian miner Francisco Restrepo searched for and rediscovered the mine, and mining titles were granted to him and his associates in 1889. Through a series of transactions, the mining titles and land in the area came under the ownership of the Compañía de las Minas de Esmeraldas de Chivor, a Colombian entity in which Restrepo was involved. Only intermittent operational activities took place until 1912, when the German gem cutter and merchant Fritz Klein joined Restrepo with an increased focus on the operational side. Early mining by Restrepo and Klein yielded several finds promising enough for them to travel to Germany together in 1913 to seek investors (figure 1). Further work was curtailed one year later, however, when Restrepo died in 1914 and Klein, who had hoped to purchase the mine with German funding, was thwarted by the outbreak of World War I. When hostilities ended, Klein sought to recommence his efforts to buy the mine in 1919, but an American corporation, the Colombian Emerald Syndicate, Ltd., had in the interim obtained an option to purchase the mine. That option was exercised, and the mine was sold in December 1919 to two key representatives of the American group, Wilson E. Griffiths and Carl K. MacFadden. On behalf of the Colombian Emerald Syndicate, mining operations HISTORY OF THE CHIVOR EMERALD MINE, PART II (1924–1970): BETWEEN INSOLVENCY AND VIABILITY