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Philip Arnold (1829–1878) was a confidence trickster[citation needed] from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and the brains behind the legendary diamond hoax of 1872, which fooled people into investing in a phony diamond mining operation. He managed to walk away from the hoax with more than half a million dollars.
Arnold opened a bank in Kentucky, and died a few years later from the results of a shootout with a rival banker.
In the 1963 television series The Great Adventure there was an episode based on this fraud called The Great Diamond Mountain. Arnold was played by actor John Fiedler.
References
- Diamonds in the Salt. By Bruce A. Woodard. Boulder, CO: Pruett Press, 1967.
- Dan Plazak A Hole in the Ground with a Liar at the Top ISBN 978-0-87480-840-7 (contains a chapter on the great diamond hoax)
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