The Curious Life of Nevada’s LaVere Redfield: The Silver Dollar King by Jack Harpster
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
LaVere Redfield was a miserly businessman who lived most of his life in Reno Nevada. He was born in 1897 in Utah, and made his fortune as an investor. His first big financial strikes were in Los Angeles during the roaring 1920s where he invested in drilling syndicates. Although its impossible to tell exactly how he made his fortune in LA, its reasonable to assume based on the evidence there is, that Redfield took some risks and caught a few good breaks. It doesn’t appear that he was an effective manager or inventor. Once he had capital, he became good at re-investing his profits and growing his investment portfolio. In the late 1920s, he cashed out and waited for markets to turn. In the depths of the great depression, he was once again buying stock in listed companies as well as land in and around Reno. He moved to Reno in the 1930s to take advantage of the absence of income tax in Nevada.
The Curious Life of Nevada’s LaVere Redfield by Jack Harpster is an engaging account of Redfield’s life. The author does a great job of telling Redfield’s story. If you’re someone who hangs around reclusive businessmen, or if you are a reclusive businessman yourself, you’ll likely enjoy this book. LaVere Redfield is often referred to as the Howard Hughes of Reno. But although Redfield was much less wealthy, his life is also filled with seemingly fantastic stories surrounding his gambling, philandering, land deals, and hoarding.
I read this book because of my interest in Nevada history, and it was recommended by professor David Schwartz of UNLV, but I also wanted to gain some insight on how other reclusive businessmen operate. By reading this book I learned that if entrepreneurs don’t nurture a small group of trusted friends and professional advisors, their life will be torn apart when they die. After an entrepreneur dies, unless they are careful to make sure their estate is prepared, a lot of hardship will be brought to their heirs. In the case of Redfield, he used a holograph will, but he was so secretive, nobody knew where his will was located, or what it contained. Unclear instructions in his will resulted in a lot of costly estate litigation. Redfield had lots of hidden assets, partly because he was trying to avoid taxes. But his secrecy cost his estate executors had a very difficult time identifying all his assets and liabilities. This ended up costing his estate and resulted in less for his heirs.
LaVere Redfield was also a hoarder. In some cases, his hoarding was economically beneficial. He collected coins, mostly silver dollars, and they held their value. But he also collected lots of junk from auctions. He stored his hoards of stuff in warehouses and in his garage, basement, and in sheds at his residence. Some of what he left behind was spoiled canned food and obsolete parts that were disposed of as garbage by his estate. I learned that if you are hoarding things, they must be items that will hold their economic value. Items that hold their economic value are things like coins, antiques, and consumer collectibles such as toys, games, and stamps. Commodities such as car parts and other machinery will become obsolete and only have value as junk in the long run.
The most famous part of Redfield LaVere’s collections were his 704,000 silver dollars. His collection of silver dollars is one of the greatest ever accumulated. Even today, Redfield silver dollars command a premium with collectors. He kept most of his silver dollars in bags in safety deposit boxes at banks, but he also had millions of dollars’ worth of coins in his garage behind false walls.
His bookkeeping was terrible. Party because he didn’t want to leave a record for the IRS, but also because he was sloppy and an ineffective manager, LaVere Redfield often missed paying the property tax on his land holdings. This resulted in property being actioned by the municipality from time to time.
LaVere Redfield dealt almost exclusively in cash. One way he could do this was somewhat unique to being located in Reno. He kept many of his stock and bond certificates in paper form. He kept those certificates in a safe in his home and also in bank safety deposit boxes around Reno. This resulted in dividend and interest cheques being mailed directly to him instead of having those payments credited to an account. He would then cash those dividend cheques at various Reno casinos. He would sometimes keep cash on deposit at the casino, or he would gamble with the funds. He also did a lot of pawning. He would take jewelry and precious metals as collateral for cash loans.
All around, this is a great book for someone who’s interested in reclusive businessmen.
