The 1902 penny craze

Sometime in late 1902, a rumor began to circulate that a worker at the mint, while making the 1902 pennies, had accidentally dropped a bar of gold into the copper. As a result, the 1902 pennies were worth more than a penny. The treasury would supposedly pay up to 18 cents for each penny. So people began frantically hoarding and stockpiling the 1902 pennies.

Despite frequent denials by the treasury, the rumor persisted as late as the 1960s.



There are different theories about how the rumor began. The article below attributed it to a Brooklyn school superintendent. Another theory, offered over at coinbooks.org, said that it started as a joke told by a fish dealer named Alvah W. Haff:

The Formoso New Era - Dec 11, 1903

The Spokane Spokesman-Review - July 12, 1961

Posted By: Alex - Fri Jul 10, 2020 - Comments (1)
Category: Confusion, Misunderstanding, and Incomprehension, Money, 1900s

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

Whole movie in second screen, with English subtitles.

Wikipedia page here.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Dec 29, 2019 - Comments (0)
Category: Ambiguity, Uncertainty and Deliberate Obscurity, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Confusion, Misunderstanding, and Incomprehension, Death, Dreams and Nightmares, Horror, Movies, Surrealism, 1970s

Follies of the Madmen #453

The wealthy always employ midgets to help them dress. Seriously, what size is that person standing on the chair? Maybe the gal in undergarments is a giant?



Source.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Nov 18, 2019 - Comments (0)
Category: Ambiguity, Uncertainty and Deliberate Obscurity, Business, Advertising, Confusion, Misunderstanding, and Incomprehension, Excess, Overkill, Hyperbole and Too Much Is Not Enough, Surrealism, Underwear, 1940s

Occasional Wife

Wikipedia page.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Nov 15, 2019 - Comments (1)
Category: Business, Confusion, Misunderstanding, and Incomprehension, Customs, Domestic, 1960s, Men, Women

The Paul Lynde Halloween Special

Posted By: Paul - Mon Oct 28, 2019 - Comments (2)
Category: Annoying Things, Antiques, Anachronisms and Throwbacks, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Celebrities, Confusion, Misunderstanding, and Incomprehension, Eccentrics, Entertainment, Geeks, Nerds and Pointdexters, Humor, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Innuendo, Double Entendres, Symbolism, Nudge-Nudge-Wink-Wink and Subliminal Messages, Superstition, Television, Avant Garde, Surrealism, 1970s, LGBT, Halloween, Nausea, Revulsion and Disgust, Nostalgia

Belly or butt?

The ad below may look, at first glance, like it's showing a perfectly innocent scene of a child kissing his mother's pregnant belly. But when it ran in Florida papers back in 2010, a lot of people saw something completely different. They were convinced it was a picture of a man mooning a child. According to Adweek.com:


It's like one of those gestalt shift images. Once you see the mooning man, it's obvious.

image source: deceptology.com

Posted By: Alex - Wed Sep 18, 2019 - Comments (4)
Category: Confusion, Misunderstanding, and Incomprehension, Advertising

The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence

An honest mistaken memory, or a deliberate hoax to cash in on the early glamour of the American Revolution? You decide!

The Wikipedia page.

History Channel account.

The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence is a text published in 1819 with the claim that it was the first declaration of independence made in the Thirteen Colonies during the American Revolution. It was supposedly signed on May 20, 1775, in Charlotte, North Carolina, by a committee of citizens of Mecklenburg County, who declared independence from Great Britain after hearing of the battle of Lexington. If the story is true, the Mecklenburg Declaration preceded the United States Declaration of Independence by more than a year. The authenticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration has been disputed since it was published, forty-four years after it was reputedly written. There is no verifiable evidence to confirm the original document's existence and no reference to it has been found in extant newspapers from 1775.[citation needed]

Professional historians have maintained that the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence is an inaccurate rendering of an authentic document known as the Mecklenburg Resolves. The Mecklenburg Resolves were a set of radical resolutions passed on May 31, 1775, that fell short of an actual declaration of independence. Although published in newspapers in 1775, the text of the Mecklenburg Resolves was lost after the American Revolution and not rediscovered until 1838. Historians believe that the Mecklenburg Declaration was written in 1800 in an attempt to recreate the Mecklenburg Resolves from memory. According to this theory, the author of the Mecklenburg Declaration mistakenly believed that the Resolves had been a declaration of independence, and so he recreated the Resolves with language borrowed from the United States Declaration of Independence. Defenders of the Mecklenburg Declaration have argued that both the Mecklenburg Declaration and the Mecklenburg Resolves are authentic.

Posted By: Paul - Sat Jan 12, 2019 - Comments (0)
Category: Antiques, Anachronisms and Throwbacks, Confusion, Misunderstanding, and Incomprehension, Government, Hoaxes and Imposters and Imitators, Politics, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century

The CSS Shenandoah

The ship that continued to fight the Civil War after the surrender of the South.




From the Wikipedia entry:

On June 27, 1865, he learned from a prize, the Susan & Abigail, that General Robert E. Lee had surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia. Her captain produced a San Francisco newspaper reporting the flight from Richmond, Virginia, of the Confederate Government 10 weeks previously. However, the newspaper also contained Confederate President Jefferson Davis's proclamation that the "war would be carried on with re-newed vigor."[9] Waddell then captured 10 more whalers in the space of 7 hours just below the Arctic Circle.

On August 3, 1865, Waddell finally learned of the war's end when he met at sea the Liverpool barque Barracouta, which was bound for San Francisco.[10] He received the devastating news of the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston's army on April 26, Kirby Smith's army's surrender on May 26, and crucially the capture of President Davis and a part of his cabinet. Captain Waddell then knew the war was over.[9]

Captain Waddell lowered his Confederate flag, and the CSS Shenandoah underwent physical alteration. Her guns were dismounted and stored below deck, and her hull was painted to look like an ordinary merchant vessel.

Article here.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Jan 02, 2018 - Comments (2)
Category: Confusion, Misunderstanding, and Incomprehension, War, Nineteenth Century