World Oil Company - 1926

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World Oil Company - 1926 - Texas Oil - Signed by Chester Bunker

World Oil Company - 1926 - Texas Oil

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Vintage Stock Certificate

Product Code: SC1998

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This rare World Oil Company stock certificate was issued in 1926 and is hand-signed by the company president and founder Chester R Bunker.

Chester Bunker was a publisher in Fort Worth, Texas who decided to become a wildcatter. His publication, Texas Oil World, was a tip sheet that primarily promoted his own business interests. To increase his circulation he began to promote premium subscriptions which would give the subscribers a tiny share of profits from his company's oil leases. He began wildcat drilling in Crockett County and surprisingly hit oil which would be named the Powell No. 1 well. He quickly sold the well and lease to Humble Oil for about $1.4 million.

Bunker then started the World Oil Company which used the capital from his "subscribers", who surrendered their membership for the new shares. He began drilling several wells and bankrupted the company. He was widely blamed for mismanagement and was convicted of mail fraud a few years later. While his endeavors were mostly failures, his discovery in Crockett County with the Powell No. 1 well, is largely credited as Crockett County's first producing oil well which would change the landscape of Crockett County. Today there are over 2,000 producing wells in Crockett.