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Merry Money · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
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  Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: We've all been there. Fingers covered in paper cuts, pieces
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  Speaker 1: of Scotch tape, stuck along the edge of a coffee table,
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  Speaker 1: a single pair of scissors that keeps getting lost. For me,
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  Speaker 1: every Christmas Eve turns into a mad dash to finish
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  Speaker 1: wrapping presents, which got me thinking, how did this tradition
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  Speaker 1: even begin? Well, it turns out the practice of wrapping
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  Speaker 1: gifts can be traced all the way back to the
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  Speaker 1: first century CE. It began in Korea with a special
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  Speaker 1: type of decorative, reusable wrapping cloth called a bajogi. A
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  Speaker 1: similar practice arose in Japan during the sixteen hundreds. By
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  Speaker 1: the Victorian era, gift wrapping had spread to Great Britain,
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  Speaker 1: although it was mainly a luxury for the upper classes,
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  Speaker 1: and this was when wrapping paper started to look kind
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  Speaker 1: of similar to what we use today. Instead of reusable cloth.
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  Speaker 1: They covered gifts in thick patterned paper, and they usually
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  Speaker 1: added some ribbon or lace for that extra special pop.
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  Speaker 1: For those who couldn't afford this kind of frivolity, tissue
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  Speaker 1: paper was a less pricey alternative. It was common to
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  Speaker 1: see gifts shrouded in festive colors like red, green, or white,
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  Speaker 1: and some stores wrap gift items themselves as a courtesy.
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  Speaker 1: But not everyone was in favor of this colorful practice.
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  Speaker 1: The nineteen eleven edition of Hardware Dealers magazine featured the
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  Speaker 1: following note, and I quote, whatever your business, leave the
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  Speaker 1: freak wrapping papers to the other fellow, which is pretty harsh.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, what did the freak paper ever do to him?
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  Speaker 1: In any case, this crotchety advice was largely ignored. By
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  Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, the tissue paper fad had made its
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  Speaker 1: way across the Pond, and American stores often sold out
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  Speaker 1: of the product around the holidays. In fact, it's exactly
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  Speaker 1: what happened to Jc and Raleigh Hall, two brothers who
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  Speaker 1: ran a stationary store in Kansas City, Missouri, in nineteen seventeen.
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  Speaker 1: Their gift wrapping shelves ran empty. Not wanting to upset
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  Speaker 1: their customers or miss out on valuable holiday sales. JC
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  Speaker 1: and Raleigh went to the back of the store and
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  Speaker 1: looked for something that could replace the tissue paper. They
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  Speaker 1: found some thin, decorative sheets that they had ordered from France.
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  Speaker 1: They normally used it for lining envelopes, but with no
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  Speaker 1: other options, the brothers put the French paper out for
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  Speaker 1: sale at ten cents a sheet. The whole stack sold
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  Speaker 1: out within a single day, so the next year, JC
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  Speaker 1: and Raleigh ordered more French paper, this time specifically marketing
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  Speaker 1: it for wrapping gifts. Again, it sold out to almost immediately.
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  Speaker 1: In nineteen nineteen, after two years of paper selling success,
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  Speaker 1: the brothers started designing and producing their own decorative wrapping paper.
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  Speaker 1: This product was so successful that has sparked an entirely
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  Speaker 1: new industry wrapping paper as we know it was born.
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  Speaker 1: These days, it's estimated that over eight thousand tons of
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  Speaker 1: wrapping paper are used each Christmas season. It's a sixteen
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  Speaker 1: point two billion dollar industry. In the UK alone, people
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  Speaker 1: throw away over two hundred and twenty five thousand miles
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  Speaker 1: of paper during the holidays. That's enough to wrap around
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  Speaker 1: the globe nine times. To say it's wasteful would be
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  Speaker 1: an understatement. Maybe that's why the guy who wrote into
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  Speaker 1: Hardware Dealers Magazine was so upset. In my opinion, it
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  Speaker 1: might be time to take a page out of the
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  Speaker 1: ancient Korean book and think about switching to a reusable
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  Speaker 1: cloth wrap like the bajogi. In fact, my family's been
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  Speaker 1: doing that for a few years now, but it doesn't
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  Speaker 1: seem like people are willing to give up on wrapping
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  Speaker 1: paper anytime soon. Christmas just wouldn't be the same without
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  Speaker 1: those paper cuts, the scotch tape, and the missing scissors,
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  Speaker 1: and of course the feeling of tearing into a present
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  Speaker 1: to see what's hidden inside. And we have jac and
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  Speaker 1: Raleigh Hall to thank for making wrapping paper what it
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  Speaker 1: is today. Indeed, the brothers created something of a paper
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  Speaker 1: based dynasty, selling everything from wrapping paper to stationary to
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  Speaker 1: greeting cards. Their brand even expanded into television and film,
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  Speaker 1: becoming known for producing holiday movies. And you've probably heard
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  Speaker 1: of the name of j. C. And Raleigh's stationary store,
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  Speaker 1: it's called Hallmark. A couple of Christmases ago, a strange
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  Speaker 1: story made the headlines in Utah. A person had gone
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  Speaker 1: into a grocery store, paid in cash and received some change,
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  Speaker 1: and then they stuck the money in their wallet without
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  Speaker 1: much thought. But later, when they looked at the one
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  Speaker 1: dollar bill they'd received from the cashier, they were shocked
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  Speaker 1: to see the face staring back at them. It wasn't
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  Speaker 1: the regular green tinted George Washington. Instead, in the center
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  Speaker 1: of the bill there was a portrait of none other
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  Speaker 1: than jolly old Saint Nick staring at Santa Claus. The
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  Speaker 1: person was baffled. They thought maybe it was some kind
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  Speaker 1: of holiday joke, but then they started to worry that
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  Speaker 1: they'd been given a counterfeit bill. Unsure what else to do,
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  Speaker 1: they took a picture of the dollar and sent it
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  Speaker 1: to the Fox news station in Salt Lake City. It
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  Speaker 1: turns out this person wasn't the only one who had
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  Speaker 1: stumbled upon some curious cash. The news station published an
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  Speaker 1: article letting people know that the festive funds were indeed
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  Speaker 1: legal us tender. That image of Chris Kringle was just
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  Speaker 1: a sticker placed there by a charity that was fittingly
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  Speaker 1: called Santa's Dollars. Each year, Santa's Dollars sells the merry
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  Speaker 1: money at a slight markup, donating the profits to a
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  Speaker 1: long list of good causes, and so that is how
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  Speaker 1: a bunch of weird bucks ended up in Salt Lake
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  Speaker 1: City supermarkets. But considering that we're only one minute into
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  Speaker 1: this story, you probably know that this is part of
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  Speaker 1: a much longer and much weirder history of American currency.
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  Speaker 1: You see, the standardized US dollars of today were designed
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  Speaker 1: and instituted in the early eighteen sixties. Prior to that,
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  Speaker 1: every single state could make their own money. There were
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  Speaker 1: New York dollars, Massachusetts dollars, Connecticut dollars, and so on
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  Speaker 1: and so forth. As you probably imagine, this created a
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  Speaker 1: lot of confusion when it came to conducting business across
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  Speaker 1: state lines. But it gets even worse. Beyond having different
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  Speaker 1: currencies in each state. Even individual banks could design and
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  Speaker 1: print their own dollars. Just imagine trying to keep your
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  Speaker 1: Bank of America ones separated from your Chase Bank twenties.
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  Speaker 1: You would need like three times as many compartments in
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  Speaker 1: your wallet. And on top of all of this, the
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  Speaker 1: gold Standard, which lasted until nineteen seventy one, made the
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  Speaker 1: situation even more complicated. The gold standard is a system
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  Speaker 1: in which the value of paper currency is directly connected
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  Speaker 1: to gold. For example, if a bank had a million
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  Speaker 1: dollars worth of gold, they could print a million dollar
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  Speaker 1: bills with the promise that at any time a customer
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  Speaker 1: could exchange their money for the metal. Basically, because gold
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  Speaker 1: is a precious metal, it was perceived to have inherent value.
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  Speaker 1: By contrast, money, which is literally just dyed paper, only
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  Speaker 1: had value if it was backed by gold. That meant
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  Speaker 1: that banks had an incentive to keep as much gold
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  Speaker 1: on hand as possible while convincing customers to use the
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  Speaker 1: paper money instead. But as you'd imagine, to make people
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  Speaker 1: want dollars instead of gold, banks had to get very creative.
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  Speaker 1: Take the Saint Nicholas Bank of New York City for example.
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  Speaker 1: In the early eighteen hundreds, the institution capitalized on its
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  Speaker 1: name by printing a whole series of holiday themed bills.
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  Speaker 1: These weren't decorated by stickers like the Santa dollars of today.
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  Speaker 1: They literally had images of Santa Claus, his sleigh, and
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  Speaker 1: his reindeer woven into the fabric. The idea was to
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  Speaker 1: make paper money fun and collectible so people would willingly
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  Speaker 1: keep it over gold, and it worked, or at least
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  Speaker 1: the idea caught on later on in the eighteen fifties,
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  Speaker 1: the Howard Banking Company released a so called center Closs
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  Speaker 1: bill featuring pictures of the Dutch version of Santa, and
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  Speaker 1: more banks followed suit. All In all, twenty one financial
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  Speaker 1: institutions in eight different states jumped on the merry money train,
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  Speaker 1: creating and distributing holiday themed dollars. People love them, and
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  Speaker 1: banks love that they got to keep their gold in
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  Speaker 1: the safe. But no fad last forever. When the US
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  Speaker 1: institutionalized the standardized national currency in the early eighteen sixties,
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  Speaker 1: all of these unique bills suddenly became worthless. Well kind of.
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  Speaker 1: If you happen upon a nineteenth century Santa dollar today,
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  Speaker 1: you wouldn't be able to use it to buy your
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  Speaker 1: Christmas presents. But that doesn't mean that cash isn't coveted
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  Speaker 1: among collectors. They can fetch impressive prices. A single Saint
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  Speaker 1: Nick bill sold at auction in twenty eleven for forty
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  Speaker 1: thousand dollars. And so this year, as you're writing your
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  Speaker 1: wish list to send off to the North Pole, consider
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  Speaker 1: asking Santa to drop some of those biographical bucks into
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  Speaker 1: your stocking. It's an investment that might just leave you
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  Speaker 1: feeling jolly. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
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  Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
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  Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
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  Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
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  Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
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  Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
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  Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
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  Speaker 1: over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time,
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  Speaker 1: stay curious.