Word: guaragnella
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Shark fishing became big business in 1938 when "Tano" Guaragnella, a fin-sharp San Francisco fish broker, sent a soup-fin shark liver to a chemist, learned that the livers of Galeorhinus zyopterus are the richest known source of Vitamin...
...When Guaragnella ranged the fish docks offering $40 a ton for soup-fin sharks that fishermen had been glad to sell to fish-meal grinders for $10, his competitors figured he had gone shark-shearing mad. But when his secret leaked out, the price soared to $1,500 a ton. By last year, the quantity of soup-fin livers had risen from 40,000 Ib. in 1937 to 1.4 million...
Heroes of the boom were an unassuming shark called Galeorhinus zyopterus and a San Francisco fish broker named T. J. ("Tano") Guaragnella. Fishermen had always considered Galeorhinus a piscivorous, tackle-snarling, bait-swallowing pest whose carcass brought only $10 a ton for fertilizer, though Chinese sometimes bought his fins for soup. But shrewd Fish Buyer Guaragnella had a hunch. Seeing a huge Galeorhinus liver, he had it tested, found it was 100 times as rich in vitamin A as cod liver...
...When Guaragnella began buying soup-fin shark at $40 a ton, the fishing fleet thought he was crazy. But soon the secret was out and prices zoomed to $240, $500, $1,200 and finally, last fall, to $1,500 a ton. Fishermen went shark staring mad. With their 6,000-hook trawls and quarter-mile gill nets they hauled in as much as $3,800 a week and roared around the water fronts orie-eyed with Napa Valley...
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