Shoes sold for peanuts

We've previously posted about cases in which advertisers used the word 'bananas' as slang for dollars, and then had to sell the product (a car and a stereo system) for the appropriate number of bananas.

Here's the identical situation, but with peanuts.

Macon Chronicle-Herald - Sep 13, 1949

Posted By: Alex - Wed May 24, 2023 - Comments ()
Category: Money, 1940s

How Now, Dow Jones

The weird premises of certain Broadway shows is a theme encountered before on WU. Here's another instance.

How Now, Dow Jones, set in Wall Street, follows Kate who announces the Dow Jones numbers. Her fiancé will not marry her until the Dow Jones Industrial Average hits 1,000.

The author William Goldman offers his analysis.

Posted By: Paul - Mon May 22, 2023 - Comments (3)
Category: Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Money, Music, Theater and Stage, 1960s

America’s Fascist Dime

In 1916, the U.S. Mint introduced a dime that had, on one side, an image of the Fasces — a bundle of sticks that served as a symbol of authority in ancient Rome. The Fasces were also the source of the term 'fascism.' So as fascism emerged in Europe, it became increasingly awkward that the U.S. had a fascist symbol on its money. Finally, in 1945, the "fascist dime" was retired.



There have long been rumors that fascist supporters somehow managed to get the symbol on the dime. But mainstream opinion is that the presence of the symbol on the dime was just a weird accident. GovMint.com notes that Adolph Weinman had designed the dime in 1916, "three years BEFORE the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini adopted this symbol for his cruel regime."

Of course, it could have been worse. At least they didn't put a swastika on the dime.

More info: Numismatic News, Wikipedia

Posted By: Alex - Tue Apr 18, 2023 - Comments (8)
Category: Money

Music of the NY Times Financial Section

I posted a month ago about Rhapsody in Big Blue, which was Darryl Gammill's transformation of the stock price of IBM into music. It turns out that Gammill wasn't the first to use asset prices as the basis for music. Back in the 1930s, composer Joseph Schillinger came up with a system that allowed him to convert "fluctuations in wholesale prices of agricultural produce," as listed on the NY Times financial page, into music. Details from A Thing or Two About Music by Nicolas Slonimsky:

Posted By: Alex - Mon Apr 10, 2023 - Comments ()
Category: Money, Music

Unlikely Reasons for Murder No. 13

Source: The News and Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina)03 Apr 1912

Posted By: Paul - Thu Mar 23, 2023 - Comments (3)
Category: Death, Money, Teenagers, 1910s

Old Money

Article source: The Indianapolis Star (Indianapolis, Indiana) 09 Dec 1959, Wed Page 31

Posted By: Paul - Thu Dec 15, 2022 - Comments (2)
Category: Destruction, Government, Money, 1950s

The Decimal Shopping Game

When the UK made its switch from old-style currency to decimal currency, this board game was issued to help familiarize people with the new mode.

Currently, a copy is for sale at UK eBay, where more pix await your inspection.

Board Game Geek has just a placeholder entry.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Dec 08, 2022 - Comments (4)
Category: Boredom, Games, Money, 1970s, United Kingdom

Teach your wife to be a widow

Donald L. Rogers was financial editor of the New York Herald Tribune. He originally wrote "Teach your wife to be a widow" as an article for Collier's Magazine, and later expanded it into a book (1952).



The article (and book) urged husbands to educate their wives about finances, so that in case the husband died the wife wouldn't end up going destitute.

I think Jean Mayer's article, "How to murder your husband," pairs particularly well with it. Both appeared in the 1981 Reader's Digest collection, Love and Marriage.

Posted By: Alex - Sun Dec 04, 2022 - Comments (3)
Category: Money, Husbands, Wives, Books, Marriage

Trapdoor for bank tellers

I'm aware of quite a few inventions designed to trap or incapacitate bank robbers. But the idea of allowing a bank teller to abruptly vanish is more novel.

Of course, this approach could only work if there was a single teller working, and hopefully no other customers in the bank.

I was curious whether this bank with the cashier trapdoor might still exist, but I had no luck finding its address. I did find that it was acquired by another bank in 1948. So it was probably demolished long ago.

Hagerstown Morning Herald - Aug 9, 1932

Posted By: Alex - Mon Nov 28, 2022 - Comments ()
Category: Crime, Inventions, Money, 1930s

Charles Garland and his Love Farm

Elon Musk, stand back!

If you inherited a ton of money at a young age, you too might be confused about how to live. At first, you might radically decide not to accept the fortune. Then, you might decide to use it for charitable purposes. Finally, you might opt to establish a free-love commune.

That's the path that one Charles Garland took. Read his whole story at Wikipedia.

After his separation from his wife, Garland established two successive agricultural communes, or "colonies of idealists", both named April Farm.[19] The first April Farm, in which Garland lived from January 1922, was at North Carver, Massachusetts.[22] In 1924, Garland moved to a new "April Farm" in Lower Milford Township, Pennsylvania.[19]

Garland scandalized polite society by inviting young women to live with him at these colonies, where he planned to "work out the problems of life".

Naturally, newspapers had a field day with all this.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Nov 10, 2022 - Comments (3)
Category: Money, Communes, Utopias, and Other Alternative Societies, Public Indecency, Bohemians, Beatniks, Hippies and Slackers, 1920s