George C Parker is said to have made a career out of selling the Brooklyn Bridge, offloading it to gullible punters twice a week at the height of his success.
The annals of investment scams contain many well-documented cases, with plenty of evidence to back them up. But there are also many tales that have surely been at least partly embellished in the telling. One such case, almost certainly, is that of George C Parker, the self-proclaimed ace amongst confidence tricksters, after whom the phrase "and if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you" was allegedly coined.
Brooklyn Bridge
Legend has it that, on its completion in 1883, New York's Brooklyn Bridge quickly became a magnet for confidence tricksters of all kinds, with George Parker rapidly establishing himself as a bridge salesman par excellence.
Apparently, Parker first got into the game by approaching a gullible-looking tourist and attempting to sell him the bridge, and he surprised himself by quickly taking a few hundred dollars from his mark. After his second success a few days later, he gave up his other scams and decided to make selling Brooklyn Bridge his full-time occupation.
Parker soon honed his technique, and would approach people and tell them he was the bridge's architect and owner, shaking his head as he recounted the woes he faced trying to get his toll booths set up and operating -- he was an engineer, not a businessman, he'd complain. What he needed, he'd explain, was someone to run the tedious business of collecting the tolls for him, leaving him free to go off designing and building new bridges.
Big money
If the victim showed interest in taking on the job, Parker would eventually get round to convincing him to buy the bridge (or at least, buy the rights to collect tolls), basing the price on how wealthy he seemed. His top sale reportedly earned him a handsome $50,000, but he'd settle for as little as $50 when that's all the buyer could afford.
Sometimes, he'd even take the money in installments, with months of payments going by before the sucker became suspicious. And it's even said that, on occasions, the police would have to step in to stop the bridge's new "owner" trying to erect toll booths.
At the peak of his powers, Parker is said to have been selling the bridge twice a week on average.
Other landmarks
As well as his many sales of the Brooklyn Bridge, Parker was also said to have sold other famous New York landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty, Madison Square Garden, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the tomb of Ulysses S Grant.
Such was his professionalism that he went to great lengths to set up bogus offices from which to conduct his sales, and forged documents that gave him the legal rights over the property being sold.
Parker's career eventually came to an end in 1928, when, after his third conviction for fraud, he became the victim of an early "three strikes law" and was sentenced to a term in Sing Sing prison. According to some accounts he was jailed for 8 years, while others tell us he was handed a life term. Either way, he ended his days there in 1936.
The truth?
But was George C Parker really the smoothest-tongued and most successful con-artist ever? While there really are gullible people out there, and plenty of conmen have succeeded at the landmark-selling game over the years, the apparent frequency and ease of Parker's exploits do stretch credibility more than a little.
The well-documented case of Victor Lustig, who famously sold the Eiffel Tower, but was rumbled when he tried it a second time, shows how hard it actually is to pull off such a stunt. Some people are gullible enough to fall for it, but they're not ten a penny. Of all the people Parker would have had to approach to successfully sell Brooklyn Bridge twice a week, many would undoubtedly have gone to the police (who would have been on to him when they allegedly had to stop people erecting toll booths anyway). And he would surely have been easy enough to catch.
The story of George C Parker is an entertaining one, but it's one I think we have to put into the "doubtful" category. But if you believe it's all true, could I perhaps interest you in Blackfriars?
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