Biography

Over the years, people have asked, who is Terry Cox? Before my memory fades any further, I guess I'd better give you a brief bio.

I was born in 1950 and was raised in Madison, Indiana. Madison is an historic town on the Ohio River, about midway between Louisville and Cincinnati. It was founded a few years before the state, so the town boasts a huge supply of Federal-era architecture. If you're ever passing through the region, make sure you take time to tour the city.

(Here is a hard-to-photograph view of the Madison & Indianapolis Railroad, later PRR, grade at Madison. At 5.89%, the grade is generally assumed to be the steepest line-haul grade of any in the U.S.)

I went to Indiana University in the turbulent period of the late 60s and early 70s. Fortunately, I avoided most of the controversy and student protests by spending all of my free time, and much class time, underground.

By "underground," I mean exploring and mapping caves. You may still find my name associated with cave maps of southern Indiana plus a few in Kentucky and central Mexico. Sadly, the intervening years have closed many wonderful caves to exploration.

(Here is a map of Wayne Cave near Bloomington that Greg Spaulding and I mapped in the early 1970s. This tiny map shows a little over 3 miles of passages.)

Caving, also known as "spelunking" by non-cavers, led me to many life-long friends and a degree in geology. (I took a year off to recover from a caving-related injury, but that's another story.) After graduation, I took a position with Amax Coal Company and immediately trotted off to the southern Appalachians to explore for coal.

Soon, I relocated to West Virginia and spent my time evaluating coal properties all over the Appalachians, from Alabama to Pennsylvania. I cannot imagine how many surface and underground coal operations I visited during those years. Yes, many areas of Appalachia have been terribly devastated by coal mining, but there are beautiful areas, too.

I liked working in the Appalachians, but I appreciated the opportunity to work in the West. In 1977, I came to the Denver area to work for Rocky Mountain Energy, a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Corp. Over the next decade, I spent the majority of my time doing what I had done in the East -- evaluating large coal properties for purchase.

That work gave me the wonderful opportunity to learn about coal in practically every other part of the United States, from Texas to Alaska. It also taught me about large inter-company negotiations and financing.

Oil and gas prices collapsed in the late 1980s. That allowed many power plants to switch away from coal. Good for them; bad for coal geologists.

Seeing that coal was going to drop into a low cycle, I took the opportunity to move on to other endeavors.

In 1989, Pruett Publishing published my first book, Inside the Mountains, a history of mining around Central City, Colorado. That book is out of print, but you can still find it occasionally on eBay or Alibris.com.

Between 1985 and 1992, I sold collectible paper money. I originally started with fractional currency, but expanded gradually to include obsolete currency, large U.S. currency, souvenir cards, Confederate currency, and Confederate bonds. Sometime in either 1988 or 1989, I first had the opportunity to sell railroad stocks and bonds.

It was at that time that I realized that very little information about pricing existed. There were three small, classic volumes by George LaBarre, but little else. (His work is occasionally acquirable from Alibris.) Out of desperation, I started collecting information about prices.

I loved selling paper. In fact, I loved selling paper much more than collecting it. The problem is that, in order to make money, you must be a very good buyer. I never was. I was never a good shark. I always paid too much. I decided to stop selling paper money in 1992, but continued selling railroad stocks and bonds for another year.

Curiously, I never cared much about owning collecting paper. I respect the people who do and find that we have a lot in common. It is just that they like collecting paper and I like collecting information.

So I just kept collecting more and more and more information about stock and bond prices.

Selling collectible paper was, and remains, a part-time occupation, so I continued with other money-making endeavors. I taught a few courses on business writing while I played geologist for an engineering firm. My wife and I also started a small bookstore in the Colorado high country which was more a labor of love than a money-making venture.

By 1994, I had enough information compiled for a catalog on prices for collectible stocks and bonds. BNR Press kindly accepted the project and published the work in December, 1995. Examples of that first edition are occasionally available on eBay.

Starting in 1997, and old friend from Rocky Mountain Energy and I formed a partnership to index about 13,000 alignment maps for a major U.S. railroad. That project led to an even larger, multi-year project of scanning and indexing 70,000 maps, reports, documents, and air photos for a major U.S. oil company. It continues to this day.

The first edition of my catalog had sold out by 2000 and the amount of new information about stock and bond prices had almost doubled the size of my database. While BNR wanted to publish the second and successive editions, personal considerations pushed back the publication date several times.

As a bridge between the first and second editions, I started this web site in June, 2000. That invited a flood of new correspondents and new submittals, making the second edition even more imperative.

By late 2002, it became obvious that I would need to publish the second and successive editions myself. Self-publishing was not what I wanted to do. It is a big hassle and is seldom a money-making venture. However, like caving, mining history, and our bookstore, this project is a labor of love. I finally published the second edition in November, 2003.

The database of information continues to grow ever-larger with the contributions of collectors around the world. About 75% of my current association of correspondents live in the United States with the remainder in Europe, primarily Germany. This wide-ranging group of people is crucial because not all U.S. railroad certificates are available in the U.S. Conversely, many certificates only sell in the U.S. and are hard to find in Europe.

Looking back over my meager accomplishments, I see one recurring theme: partnership. That might seem odd for an only child, but truth be told, I know my own limitations very well. I know that I cannot accomplish much without depending heavily on the help of others. I certainly could not accomplish this huge information-collecting project without other people.

Once I realized this, I discovered the next higher truth. People WANT to help. Give people an opportunity to help and it allows them to feel involved and to enjoy the hobby more.

So, thanks. Thanks to everyone who has helped get me to this point. I am in your perpetual debt.

If interested in newspapers and magazines, you may check out my eBay store site. I just can't get away from selling paper.