Julius Popper and the Coins of the Argentine Gold Rush

A few years ago, I had the chance to participate in the sale of Louis E. Eliasberg, Sr.'s collection of world gold coins. The opportunity to examine a collection of great, under-appreciated material that I would ordinarily never encounter was a thrill, and in the weeks leading up to the auction, I found myself taking a crash course on world coins.

As I examined the catalogue, I was fascinated by two lots near the end of the sale: a pair of coins from Tierra del Fuego, the archipelago found at the southern tip of South America. I had no idea that Tierra del Fuego had ever issued coins and I was captivated by the catalogue's short description of Julius Popper, the man responsible for striking the mysterious pieces in the first place.

As it turned out, Popper was an adventurer who prospected for gold, which he struck privately into the 1- and 5-Gramo pieces that had captured my interest. That being the case, these coins were actually pieces of Pioneer Gold – my area of interest, and consequently something worth researching.

I decided to try to learn more about Popper, but ran into problems almost immediately. The few bits of information I found about him conflicted with one another, and most anything that appeared authoritative was written in Spanish, a language I will never master (I presently know the meaning of the word sombrero and the phrase yo quiero Taco Bell; otherwise I am helpless). So, armed with my computer, a few articles and books in Spanish and the Babel Fish translator program (babelfish.altavista.com), I dove in and did my best to separate the man from the myth (and my own faulty translation). What follows is my best attempt to tell the story of this larger-than-life figure and the coins he struck.

Julius Popper – The Tyrant of Tierra Del Fuego
Julius Popper was a Romanian-born adventurer, engineer and eventual despot whose biography reads more like fiction than fact. His father was an intellectual and a successful dealer in antiquities who apparently impressed Julius with stories of far-away lands and riches. As soon as Popper was able, he left Bucharest for Paris, where he studied civil and mechanical engineering. Once Popper completed his studies, his wanderlust got the better of him and he began traveling the world.

Starting from Paris, he traveled to Turkey and on to Egypt, then to China, India, Japan, the United States and finally South America. His travels in Latin America brought him to Cuba, where he is widely credited with creating the footprint of modern-day Havana.

While exploring Brazil in 1885, Popper heard about the gold rush that was taking place in Southern Argentina, near the Straits of Magellan. He quickly made his way to Buenos Aires and then on to Cape Virgin, one of the earliest mining camps. Shortly after Popper's arrival, aggressive mining had more or less exhausted the diggings, prompting Popper to form his own mining exploration company. It comprised a group of 18 men, mostly Austrian, for whom Popper had secured supplies and a tremendous amount of weaponry, ostensibly to protect any gold the company might find from claim jumpers.

In late 1886, Popper and his men landed at Future Bay on the island of Tierra del Fuego – a place that at the time was more or less completely unexplored. After landing, the group trekked across the island without finding any rich gold deposits. Pushing east, they eventually reached San Sebastian Bay where they discovered deposits of black sand reminiscent of the richly productive sands which had contained gold at the Cape Virgin diggings.

Upon staking a claim at San Sebastian Bay, Popper and his men continued to explore, eventually returning to the area and establishing the settlement of El Paramo. Supplies and reinforcements arrived and soon Popper's company, Lavaderos de Oro del Sud – the Gold Washers of the South – was producing gold in quantity. Within a year of landing at Future Bay, Popper's men mined an impressive 154 pounds of fine gold. With his newfound wealth and status, Popper's dreams of greatness began to take on a life of their own. The Indians of Tierra del Fuego, who had clashed with Popper's men shortly after his arrival on the island, were among the first to run afoul of his megalomania.

Popper saw them as sub-human, and he and his men clashed with them frequently. Without guns, the Indians were hardly a match for Popper's heavily armed mercenaries, and reports that he and his men hunted Indians as game soon began to circulate. This impression was helped along by a photograph in which Popper posed with a gun, standing astride the corpse of one of his victims.

Popper returned to Buenos Aires in 1886 to perfect his claims to the diggings that he had established in Tierra del Fuego. He spent his spare time lecturing and raising funds for the Lavaderos de Oro del Sud – listing the company on the Argentine stock exchange with great success.

By 1889, Popper had returned to Tierra del Fuego, accompanied by a large contingent of men he commanded with military precision. Word of his successful diggings had spread, and he and his men began having problems with outlaws and would-be thieves, some of whom came from Chile. His efforts to repel these interlopers were brutal but effective, and attracted the interest of the Chilean government, who mounted an expedition to rid Tierra del Fuego of the Popper regime. Aided by Tierra del Fuego's extreme weather, Popper managed to subdue the Chilean party, thereby strengthening his hold on the island.

Following his clash with the Chileans, some of the gold that Popper and his men mined in 1889 was struck into crude coins at the El Paramo diggings. These coins were made in two denominations (or perhaps more appropriately, weights) 1 Gramo and 5 Gramos. It is unknown exactly how many of these pieces were made, but few have survived – less than ten 1 Gramos from El Paramo are known, and only two or three 5-Gramos from the site exist.

At some point, Popper moved his minting operation to Buenos Aires. The coins struck there were made using modern minting equipment and lack the crude charm of Popper's earlier issues. The self-appointed ruler of Tierra del Fuego also had stamps issued in his name during this time period – a sign of his power in the region, and perhaps a symbol of his megalomania.

In June of 1893, Julius Popper was found dead in his apartment in Buenos Aires, the apparent victim of poison. Whether he died at his own hand, was the victim of a jealous business associate or one of his many bitter enemies has never been determined. Helped along by the mystery surrounding his death, Popper's legacy has become the stuff of legend in South America. He has been the subject of several books, a wildly inaccurate movie and has even made a mark on the world of music, in the form of Julio Popper, an avant-garde Argentine rock band. Popper was perhaps the last in a line of larger-than-life conquistadores bent upon finding riches in the New World.

David McCarthy is the Senior Numismatist and Researcher at Kagin's, Inc. He has established himself as a leading expert on the subjects of Pioneer Gold, Colonials and Early Federal coins, becoming a Red Book contributor in 2007.