page_title: James Campbell Besley
section_title: Good luck mascot promotion
hierarchical_section_title: James Campbell Besley / Good luck mascot promotion
caption_attribution_description: English: Article explaining how to order the Besley Pre-Inca Good Luck Mascot printed in the North Wales Chronicle and Advertiser for the Principality newspaper
context_page_description: James Campbell Besley also known as "Handsome Jim" Besley, "Captain James Campbell Besley", "Captain Jim", "Captain Besley", "Colonel Besley" was an Australian explorer, amateur anthropologist, film producer, mine owner, polo player, rancher and entrepreneur who traveled the world.
  Besley was also a prodigious charlatan, spinning fanciful stories regarding his birth, upbringing and career. Besley manipulated the media for decades, lying to them during their efforts to report his exploits.
context_section_description: For a number of years Besley offered for sale replicas of his "good luck mascot” (charm) to newspaper readers in Europe and Canada, often claiming the proceeds would benefit various local charities.
  Described as a "5,000 year old, small, pre-Inca idol, embossed on one side with the figure of a woman and on the other with that of a man", the mascot was advertised as having been given to the "Captain" many years ago in Peru by an old Indian woman, whose life he had saved. The woman assured Besley the amulet would "protect him from violent death". Payments for the amulet were to be sent to different apartment addresses in downtown London, England.
  Besley attributed "his numerous escapes from death during his explorations in East Africa, the Arctic Circle, and through the primeval forests of unexplored South America", which were "inhabited by hostile Indians with poisoned arrow" to his possession of the mascot. The advertisement described the life saving qualities of the amulet, saying "Captain Besley was through the South African War; and at the outbreak of the Mexican Rebellion a few years ago, at the request of President Diaz raised and led a force of 2,000 Yaqui Indians, which kept the field for five months, but was eventually compelled to disband in consequence of lack of ammunition and provisions" and that "his ranch in Mexico was looted by rebels and 30,900 head of cattle and 4,000 horses and mules (were) swept away". There are no contemporaneous newspaper articles that prove these claims.
  In Great Britain, purchasers were asked to send £1 to the "Mascot Day Fund for Private Hospitals" in order to receive a replica of Besley's mascot and be entered into a drawing for the "original" mascot.  Besley insisted that regardless of having been won in the final drawing, the original amulet "shall be lent (back) to him (Besley) when the time for his next exploration comes round".  The same replica mascot was offered to readers of Welsh newspapers at a lower cost of 2 shillings with no additional offer. In Belgium, readers of L'Indépendance Belge were told "each buyer (of a replica mascot) will receive entitlement to a raffle ticket whose major prizes will be an automobile and a piano" if purchased for one guinea (one pound and one shilling) before July 17. After July 17, the cost of a replica mascot fell to half a guinea. A year later, Besley said he was “getting a replica made” of the amulet that the actress Lily Elsie would sell at the 1918 bazaar held at London’s Albert Hall on behalf of Lady Paget's Blinded Soldier’s fund.
caption: 1917 newspaper article explaining how to order the Besley Pre-Inca Good Luck Mascot
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