Poyais Loan extremely rare bond for a &pound100 Poyais Loan, printed on a large sheet of paper 52x36cms, with dividend coupons in two columns – with one cut out. Signature of William Richardson to base, dated October 6th 1823. An extremely rare bond certificate for a totally bogus enterprise. The Scottish adventurer Gregor MacGregor, whose printed signature is on this bond, in 1820 obtained a land grant from ‘His Mosquito Majesty George Frederick II – the Chief of a South American Tribe for 8 million acres of land now part of Honduras, and Nicaragua, and declared it as a new country called ‘Poyais’ of which he was the Crown Prince. He claimed there were considerable fortunes of gold and silver there and on this basis sold land rights to aspiring colonists as well as raising &pound200,000 by an issue of Poyais Government Bonds (of which this is an example) – this is the equivalent of &pound8.5million in today’s money. Two ships containing 270 immigrants set out for this new found land in 1822/3 only to find they had discovered a mosquito infested jungle, with no means of support. About 50 of them died. Despite the discovery of the fraud, MacGregor was undaunted, setting up the Republic of Poyais of which he was President and sold more bonds to more gullible investors – and continued to sell bonds until 1845 when he died – but others continued the scam and bonds were still being sold as late as 1865 ! Examples of these bonds from such an early date of the fraud are extremely rare and highly sought after.