The Money Miners: Australia's Mining Boom 1969-1970
Australian History Business & Finance Australian Economic History Mining Industry History Natural Resource Economics Collectible Business Narrative
First-edition hardcover of Trevor Sykes’ classic, The Money Miners: Australia’s Mining Boom 1969-1970, personally signed by the author and now scarce on the open market. Published in 1978, this 388-page narrative captures the wild nickel, gold and iron-ore rush that transformed Australia from a commodity backwater into the “lucky country’s” first modern resources powerhouse. Sykes—long-time Australian Financial Review journalist and author of the celebrated “Bold Riders” business histories—brings a reporter’s eye and storyteller’s pace to the deal-makers, stock-market raiders and outback prospectors who floated hundreds of companies on the Sydney and Melbourne exchanges, then watched fortunes evaporate almost overnight. Readers gain an insider’s tour of Poseidon NL’s legendary nickel strike, the birth of the Pilbara iron-ore industry, and the political battles that shaped mining law, foreign-investment rules and environmental oversight still debated today.
What elevates this copy above ordinary reading copies is the combination of first-edition status, original dust jacket and the author’s own signature on the title page—an instant focal point for collectors of Australian business, mining and economic history. The book is also warmly inscribed (not personalised to any individual), adding human provenance without detracting from display value. Binding is tight, pages are clean and unmarked, and the only wear is light scuffing and gloss lift at the jacket’s top edge—common for a 45-year-old Australian publication and far less than usually encountered. No ex-libris markings, dog-ears or internal annotations means the text block remains in unusually fresh condition for a title that was heavily referenced by journalists and students throughout the 1980s.
For investors, historians or anyone fascinated by boom-bust cycles, The Money Miners is the go-to primary source on how speculative capital, geology and national ambition intersected to re-wire Australia’s economy. Modern ESG analysts, mining executives and finance professionals still cite Sykes’ warnings about promotional hype, sovereign risk and commodity price volatility—insights that read as prescient in today’s lithium, cobalt and rare-earth markets. Displayed on a shelf or cited in research, this signed first edition offers both intellectual utility and proven collectible appeal, locking down a pivotal decade when the Lucky Country truly learned to dig, drill and export on a global scale.
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