With works of art, they must have a provenance. If a previously unknown Van Gogh emerges, people are going to want to know why they’ve never heard of it.
So you show them the bill of sale in VVG’s own handwriting, made out to your g-g-grandfather, whose name you assumed when dealing with Van Gogh. Both it and the paintings have aged at the normal rate, so they should be easily authenticated. Heck, you can probably sell the bill of sale, too.
Yeah…Rick has a buddy that knows all about Van Gogh, but you run the risk that Chumley will spill BBQ sauce from his SUBWAY sandwich on it…
I’d carry gold and buy all the land I could in the San Fernando Valley. In 1911 that was all wasteland or orange groves. Set up a corporation with myself as the major stockholder (95%), give a law firm that still exists today a taste to run things for a hundred years, and stash the stock certificates in a bank vault or three. With a little research, finding those institutions would be easy. In fact, I’d add a series of envelopes left with a second law firm, detailing sales and acquisitions to be made over the years, to be delivered to the first firm as dated. That way they could take advantage of the Stock Market Crash of '29. By making them a fortune as well, I’d keep them on track to maintaining my fortune over the years. Then pop back to 2011 and walk down Reseda Blvd. singing “This land is my land…”
These schemes are all peanuts. What you want to do is look up William Gates I, 100 years ago he was a 20 year old man, no doubt looking for opportunity.
Introduce yourself as an eccentric millionaire investor/gambler with a proposition. You will set up a trust for his grandchildren, in the amount of $50,000.00 (a whole lot back then, not so much that you couldn’t beg, borrow or steal it to take back with you in this venture). A reputable law firm that still exists today and existed then will be appointed to manage the trust. Investments that you leave careful instructions about will finance their fees for managing the trust in perpetuity. (you can include specific dates of buys and sells in securities and stocks, you can leave instructions for guarding the fund during the great depression, etc.) These investments will pay the law firm and pay interest to Mr. Gates heirs.
Mr. Gates will receive $5,000.00 immediately upon agreeing to the terms of the deal. From that point on, each descendent of Mr. Gates who wishes to participate will receive a sum of 10% of the trust on their 18th birthday if they sign an agreement as specified below.
They just have to agree to one small, eccentric, crazy when you think about it, really, condition: each descendant must sign an agreement at 18 years old. If they wish to receive their payment from the trust they agree that if, by age 50, they have accumulated more than $1 billion in personal wealth, as determined by the law firm managing the trust and based on tax records, investment accounts, real estate holdings, etc. they need to pay the trust a mere 1/2 of 1% of all their earnings. If, and only if, you are alive 100 years from the date the trust opens, the trust will be closed and the balance returned to you.
“Mr Gates I’m offering your grandchildren all a big head start in life. The only thing I ask, should one of them reach financial success of such unimaginable proportion that they have over $1 billion in assets, is that a mere 1/2 of one percent of their wealth be returned to me 100 years from now should I live that long. What do you say? By the way here is $5,000.00 cash to help you get that family started.”
There are a million ways that could go wrong, and only one way it could go right. The butterfly effect you set off, when you interfere with BG’s past in any way, is very likely to make you lose your money. If the money helps them live in a nicer neighborhood, so he goes to a different school, so he gets interested in something other than computers, etc. Yes he’d probably be a success at whatever he did, but the kind of stupendous success he had took tremendous luck as well, and one tiny missing piece could change everything.
Its too small an amount to change the course of his life in any real way but too large an amount for him to refuse at 18.
Any of the investments noted could change the fabric of time if you are going to play that card. Maybe if Van Gogh had a buyer for a bunch of his early works at premium price all at once he would have gone on a bender and died in a carriage accident and never lived to create his later works that made the early works so valuable.
That’s why buying land in the San Fernando Valley is such a great deal. All I would be doing is beating Bob Hope to the punch.
For that matter, I’d add a bunch of worthless desert land to my purchase list. Let’s see what the city of La Quinta is worth.
I don’t think that you can just buy up the San Fernando Valley and expect that you’ll be rich today. At some point, the land needs to be developed and sold off in pieces. So unless you set up something like the Irvine Company you’ll find that all of the development has happened elsewhere.
The valley was bound to develop sooner or later. With judicious selling of plots for development, you can make the rest all the more valuable. Then lease it out instead of selling it. The developers put in all the houses, and you get rich leasing the land for office buildings and shopping centers.
Perhaps you could go back in time and research the location of a famous lost treasure, such as the Treasure of the Knights Templar, or the Treasure of the Llanganatis. Pinpoint the location, travel back to the present, retrive treasure, Profit!
Dag gum, ya’ll are coming up with some good suggestions. Now I gotta hurry up and decide this…actually there is no real deadline. Wish there was.
Also, about the “butterfly” affect. I kind of agree with “Q” in the episode he dealt with Cap Picard - we humans think we are so individually significant - he makes Picard re-live some of his past and Picard makes different “more correct” decisions… which ultimately make him a miserable person - taught him a lesson.
I really do have a real life.
It’s hard to top a sports almanac.
100 years would put you in 1911, when the World Series was already a going concern. Plus you have heavyweight title fights, when boxing really mattered.
If you can double your bet every time with no chance of losing your money will grow with astounding speed. If you go back with a list of World Series champions and heavyweight bout results, plus a few thousand dollars’ worth of gold, within ten years you will be nuttily rich.
Think about it; in ten years just knowing who’ll win the World Series, an initial investment of $250 becomes $256,000 in 1921 dollars - about $3 million in today’s terms. You could quite literally win not only more money than you could spend, but more money than there is in the whole world. The only problem you’d have would be finding people who could afford to take your bets; you couldn’t double it forever or else by the time the Yankees win the 1936 World Series your personal winning would be a tenth of the American economy.
No investment, no land, doubles in price every single year. But your bets do. Every October you are guaranteed a doubling of your money. With heavyweight championship bouts thrown in you could be crazy rich in three years.
After about the third year winning, you will be paid a visit by “some guys,” who will break your legs if you’re lucky. No legalized gambling, so it’s all Mob controlled. You’d never make it past 1915.
You’re going to buy gold now at approx $1800/oz and take it to 1911 when it was approx $20/oz and use it to buy a bunch of land? I think you haven’t thought through the amount of gold you’d need.
Don’t y’all ever watch Antiques Road Show? piffle all this gambling, investing etc. Go back and steal Your next door neighbor’s aunt Martha’s cousin Shirley’s Mom’s hideous ceramic salad bowl thats been in the family for generations and nobody likes but, you know, its a family heirloom and was just certified as a super rare Quong Jong Chow Dynasty artifact worth $40 billion
THAT wasn’t part of the question!
I can carry, well distributed, maybe 100lbs. $28,000 is enough to buy Reseda, Van Nuys and most of Glendale in 1911.
Not quite a hundred years ago but back about ninety years ago was the peak of the Florida land boom. People all up and down the east coast became convinced that Florida beachfront was going to all be developed and started buying plots of land. And most of these people had never been to Florida and never saw the land they were buying. But it was a speculation bubble and the price kept going up and up - until it crashed. This was a generation before air conditioning and people realized nobody wanted to vacation in tropical south Florida.
But the weird thing was if you had been really stubborn and refused to concede you had made a bad investment, your faith would have eventually been rewarded. It took a couple of decades longer than expected but south Florida did end up getting developed and the land did become as valuable as those speculators thought it would.
God, this is simple. BUY, BUY, BUY, BUY, BUY (I cannot repeat it enough!) all the Standard Oil Trust shares you can get. 100 years ago is August, 1911, 4 months after the Supreme Court ruling but 3 months prior to the actual breakup of the company. By buying shares in the Trust, you will end up with ownership in the following companies (from Wiki, “famous” companies boldened by me):
Standard Oil of New Jersey (SONJ) - or Esso (S.O.) – renamed Exxon, now part of ExxonMobil. Standard Trust companies Carter Oil, Imperial Oil (Canada), and Standard of Louisiana were kept as part of Standard Oil of New Jersey after the breakup.
Standard Oil of New York – or Socony, merged with Vacuum – renamed Mobil, now part of ExxonMobil.
Standard Oil of California – or Socal – renamed Chevron, became ChevronTexaco, but returned to Chevron.
Standard Oil of Indiana - or Stanolind, renamed **Amoco **(American Oil Co.) – now part of BP.
Standard’s Atlantic and the independent company Richfield merged to form **Atlantic Richfield **or ARCO, now part of BP. Atlantic operations were spun off and bought by Sunoco.
Standard Oil of Kentucky – or Kyso was acquired by Standard Oil of California - currently Chevron.
Continental Oil Company – or **Conoco **now part of ConocoPhillips.
Standard Oil of Ohio – or Sohio, acquired by BP in 1987.
The Ohio Oil Company – or The Ohio, and marketed gasoline under the Marathon name. The company is now known as **Marathon Oil **Company, and was often a rival with the in-state Standard spinoff, Sohio.
Other Standard Oil spin-offs:
Standard Oil of Iowa – pre-1911 – became Standard Oil of California.
Standard Oil of Minnesota – pre-1911 – bought by Standard Oil of Indiana.
Standard Oil of Illinois - pre-1911 - bought by Standard Oil of Indiana.
Standard Oil of Kansas – refining only, eventually bought by Indiana Standard.
Standard Oil of Missouri – pre-1911 – dissolved.
Standard Oil of Louisiana – always owned by Standard Oil of New Jersey (now ExxonMobil).
Standard Oil of Brazil – always owned by Standard Oil of New Jersey (now ExxonMobil).
Other companies divested in the 1911 breakup:
Anglo-American Oil Co. – acquired by Jersey Standard in 1930, now Esso UK.
Buckeye Pipe Line Co.
Borne-Scrymser Co. (chemicals)
Chesebrough Manufacturing (now Unilever)
Colonial Oil.
Crescent Pipeline Co.
Cumberland Pipe Line Co.
Eureka Pipe Line Co.
Galena-Signal Oil Co.
Indiana Pipe Line Co.
National Transit Co.
New York Transit Co.
Northern Pipe Line Co.
Prairie Oil & Gas.
Solar Refining.
Southern Pipe Line Co.
South Penn Oil Co. – eventually became Pennzoil, now part of Shell.
Southwest Pennsylvania Pipe Line Co.
Swan and Finch.
Union Tank Lines.
Washington Oil Co.
Waters-Pierce.