"Esmeralda" printed at top center. Certificate #519 for one share to Alex Gamble. Signed by Jno. L. MacKenzie and President William Norris. Dateline San Francisco May 20, 1864. Not cancelled. Antelope vignette. Britton & Co. printer. 25c Power of Att'y revenue stamp attached at upper right. 5.5 x 9.5" Pinhole, folds, clean. According to the Sacramento Daily Union, the Antelope Silver Mining Company of San Francisco was incorporated around February 1, 1861--this would actually put this stock certificate in Utah Territory! Esmeralda Mining District. The Antelope was one of the big three in 1860's Aurora mining companies. Alexander Gamble was a stockholder in two others of the richest mines in Aurora, the Real Del Monte and the Wide West. However, he went from rags to riches on these stocks and then back to rags. _x005F _x005F This is one of a few Aurora mines that Mark Twain got interested in. In a letter of May 4, 1862, he wrote to his brother Orion: "Yesterday we took a spirit level and got the angle of the celebrated "Antelope" ledge, and tomorrow we shall commence a hunt after the second E. extension of it. We may find it and we may not. The thing has often been tried before, but with no success. If we find it, our fortunes are made - if we don't, - they isn't. I have 75 feet in a spur of the "Antelope," which promises nothing save that it is an offshoot from a good family - and I am aristocrat enough to attach some importance to that sort of thing." On May 5 he writes, "Hunted for "Antelope" today, and found a ledge - but hardly think it is the right one. Four of us boys have dug two trenches, each 20 feet long and 6 feet deep, to-day, in the gravelly hill side. Finally, if we do find the "Antelope," we shan't care a damn anymore." [Letters from the Mark Twain Project] Aurora Nevada 1864