"The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower"

An oldie but goodie via Today I Found Out:

It was in May of 1925 when Victor Lustig first conceived the scheme that would make him a legend. With documents and letterheads proclaiming him the Deputy Director of the Ministere de Postes et Telegraphes (the Ministry of Postal Services and Telecommunications), Lustig had sent out notes to prominent Paris scrap metal businesses urgently asking them to meet him at the Hotel de Crillon. Six dealers came, curious what the French government wanted with them. After an expensive meal and plenty of wine, Lustig declared, in his typical charismatic fashion, that the city of Paris was going to knock down the Eiffel Tower and sell it for scrap metal. This was a huge secret and the public could not know at this point, of course, but he wanted the scrap metal businesses to bid against one another to see who would get this extremely valuable government contract. Negotiations began in earnest with Andre Poisson winning the bid for seventy thousand dollars (about a million dollars today). It was a lot of money, but to Poisson, who was new in town and wanted to establish a reputation.

After an expensive meal and plenty of wine, Lustig declared, in his typical charismatic fashion, that the city of Paris was going to knock down the Eiffel Tower and sell it for scrap metal. This was a huge secret and the public could not know at this point, of course, but he wanted the scrap metal businesses to bid against one another to see who would get this extremely valuable government contract.

Negotiations began in earnest with Andre Poisson winning the bid for seventy thousand dollars (about a million dollars today). It was a lot of money, but to Poisson, who was new in town and wanted to establish a reputation, it was worth the huge contract. Of course, there was one very big problem. Victor Lustig did not work for the Ministere de Postes et Telegraphes. In fact, Lustig did not work for the French government at all. Victor Lustig was a con man.

Born in Arnau, Austria-Hungary (today Hostinne, Czech Republic) in 1890, not much is known of Lustig’s childhood besides he was born as Robert V. Miller to an upper middle class family. At an early age, he decided to travel the world. In order to finance his adventures, he took to conning rich people. Fluent in several languages due to the varied cultures of his homeland, he rode ocean liners between Europe and America playing the part of a rich, free-spending young man – and gave himself a new moniker, the “Count.”...MUCH MORE