| OCR Text |
Show 170 Basis for Appraisal. A search of the records failed to show any sales of vanadium mineral land in the Rifle Creek area and therefore the approach of comparative sales cannot be used in an appraisal. The absence of any sale of vanadium mineral land is an indication of substantial value when the general circumstances of the development and exploitation of the Rifle Creek area are taken into account. These circumstances are: 1. Production of vanadium, with one exception, has been from the Rifle mine, which produced from 1925 through 1932 about 9,000,000 pounds of V2O5 in concentrate form. 2. The Rifle mine since 1926 has been owned and operated by the United States Vanadium Corporation, a subsidiary of the Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation. 3. A reserve of vanadium is of great importance to the Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation for its vanadium-steel division, and, as the Rifle mine had shown great potentiality for production of vanadium, it is natural that the mine would not be for1 sale. 4. Vanadium production apart from the Rifle mine has been small and has come from one mine. So far as is known the Garfield Vanadium Corporation, owner of this mine, has never offered its vanadium land for sale. 5. Exploration and development have shown the ore bodies, although few, to be large, and with the more favorable area under the control of two •companies there has been less opportunity to develop adjoining areas* In the absence of data to make an appraisal on the basis of comparable sales, it becomes necessary to use as a basis of value the potential capacity of the Rifle Creek |
