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What's the deal with two-dollar bills? · Ridiculous History

0:24
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, ladies and gentlemen. Today, we have
0:27
Speaker 1: something that a few people might call controversial. We're talking
0:31
Speaker 1: about Tom's We're talking about deuces. We're talking about two
0:36
Speaker 1: dollar bills. I bet two dollar bills rule everything around me? Then, right,
0:42
Speaker 1: dream and some money two dollar bills, y'all, No, it's
0:47
Speaker 1: me No. And of course we're joined with our super producer,
0:52
Speaker 1: Casey and Pegram. Casey, I'm laughing because off air, I
0:57
Speaker 1: was wondering if we should give you some kind end
1:00
Speaker 1: of currency related nickname for this for this show. How
1:03
Speaker 1: about Casey Greenback's Pegram. I like that. Yeah, I'm sold enough. Ben.
1:08
Speaker 1: You know, I only really recently realized that cream stands
1:11
Speaker 1: for cash rules everything around me. Really, I'm a huge
1:16
Speaker 1: fan that concept, But not just the acronym cream. I'm
1:20
Speaker 1: a fan of all of the multitudes of slang words
1:25
Speaker 1: we have made for currencies, both in the US and
1:28
Speaker 1: abras Scratch yeah, cheese, cabbage, grip, yeah, there's grip, a
1:35
Speaker 1: stack of bill. It's so it's so contextual and so
1:38
Speaker 1: ubiquitous now, and there's such a wide range of slang
1:42
Speaker 1: words that I feel like, if you if you say,
1:46
Speaker 1: just a made up phrase while you're handing someone money,
1:49
Speaker 1: then they will believe that slang for money. So if I,
1:52
Speaker 1: if you and I and Casey were at Dave and
1:56
Speaker 1: Busters or something, they have their own currency. Oh crap, Yeah,
1:59
Speaker 1: they beat us that cluster Bucks. Bluster Bucks, Yeah, a
2:02
Speaker 1: pale shadow of bend Bucks from what I hear. Objective.
2:06
Speaker 1: So but here, like, imagine this, so we're in um,
2:09
Speaker 1: you know, we're in some place I don't know, a
2:12
Speaker 1: ritzy club or something, but the Ritz Carlton. There we
2:15
Speaker 1: go literally ritzy. Yes, well that's where at the Ritz Carlton.
2:19
Speaker 1: And if we pay someone at the hotel counter and
2:23
Speaker 1: then we say, well, let me throw a couple of
2:25
Speaker 1: pony bones away, and it's like two bills, they're just
2:29
Speaker 1: gonna roll with it, and they may later refer to
2:33
Speaker 1: cash as pony bones, which is kind of morbid. I'm
2:36
Speaker 1: I would I would maybe be something like, yeah, let
2:38
Speaker 1: me grease your palm with a couple of these sweet
2:40
Speaker 1: Jim Jams, Jim Jams, Jim Jams. I feel like, yeah,
2:45
Speaker 1: I feel like we're we've established this um interesting etymology
2:51
Speaker 1: that's still evolving. But today's episode, as we said, is
2:56
Speaker 1: about something a little controversial in the world of US currency,
3:00
Speaker 1: the two dollar bill, the deuce, the tom. Yeah, that's
3:05
Speaker 1: why the slaying terms were Ye. I wanted to ask
3:08
Speaker 1: you at the top here. Do you have a lot
3:11
Speaker 1: of experience with two dollar bills? Do you have a
3:13
Speaker 1: like a story or did something happen to you? Well,
3:16
Speaker 1: all of my life savings are in two dollar bills
3:19
Speaker 1: inside of dirty mattresses, That's the truth. And you save
3:23
Speaker 1: money that you would have otherwise had to spend on
3:26
Speaker 1: cleaning the mattresses. Well, it's also like, you know, they're
3:29
Speaker 1: super rare, right Ben, So, I mean they're gonna one
3:31
Speaker 1: day be worth well more than two dollars apiece, my man,
3:34
Speaker 1: am I right? Sure, they're worth their weight of in
3:37
Speaker 1: saffron and uh, golden pony bones, diamond dust. Yeah, but no,
3:43
Speaker 1: that is a common misconception though, right, that two dollar
3:46
Speaker 1: bills are rare and you should hang onto them. Um,
3:49
Speaker 1: which is kind of a funny little conundrum that we'll
3:52
Speaker 1: get into a little later. But why don't we start
3:54
Speaker 1: off with sort of the broad strokes. Um, what's the
3:57
Speaker 1: history of the deuce? Excellent silent point to begin Uh,
4:01
Speaker 1: the deuce or the tom first comes to the United States.
4:06
Speaker 1: It's first printed, that is, in eighteen sixty two. Before
4:10
Speaker 1: that time, the States would allow banks to print their
4:16
Speaker 1: own currency, and that was pretty problematic. There's a good
4:18
Speaker 1: illustration of it in this documentary you and I watched
4:21
Speaker 1: called the two dollar Bill documentary. The two dollar Bill
4:23
Speaker 1: document a burse of creativity. So not to try to
4:26
Speaker 1: be addictive filmmakers, it's very very good, but come on, guys, right,
4:30
Speaker 1: that's by a writer and director John Bernardo, and in
4:34
Speaker 1: there they have some experts explain how the problem with
4:39
Speaker 1: bank issued currency is that the further away you are
4:43
Speaker 1: from the bank physically, the less likely other institutions are
4:47
Speaker 1: to accept it at full face value. They call them
4:49
Speaker 1: broken banknotes. Right. Yeah, So like a bank in Florida
4:53
Speaker 1: prints out a two dollar bill or five dollar bill,
4:56
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. A bank in Maine might say, we'll
5:00
Speaker 1: give you fifty cents for it. That's really funny. Or
5:02
Speaker 1: they might also just be like, get this trash out
5:05
Speaker 1: of my face. Yeah, get this this, get this Florida
5:08
Speaker 1: rag out of here. Well, it's sort of the same
5:09
Speaker 1: idea as you know, trading in in items like if
5:13
Speaker 1: you know, like I say, a shell or or some
5:15
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, carved wooden piece is worth something,
5:19
Speaker 1: and then I take it to some other community and
5:21
Speaker 1: they disagree. You know, what are you supposed to do?
5:26
Speaker 1: And this is issually too, because if the bank that
5:28
Speaker 1: issued the note folded, it would become an obsolete note
5:33
Speaker 1: and become absolutely worthless. But you know, it takes time
5:36
Speaker 1: for word to travel, right, so it could even be
5:39
Speaker 1: um weeks or months before someone farther away even found
5:43
Speaker 1: out that the bank had closed, and they might still
5:44
Speaker 1: give you you know, yes, So it's time dependent, it's
5:49
Speaker 1: not it's not very sustainable. This changes, hopefully for the
5:54
Speaker 1: United States in eighteen sixty two in March when they
5:58
Speaker 1: issue currency, they is one dollar bills and they issued
6:01
Speaker 1: two dollar bills and spoiler alert, two dollar bills are
6:04
Speaker 1: the hot business people in that time made an average
6:08
Speaker 1: of around fifteen dollars a month. Interesting, So if you
6:11
Speaker 1: have two dollars and you're paying, you're throwing down two's.
6:15
Speaker 1: That's gonna be my new sling, throwing down to throwing
6:18
Speaker 1: down twos drop induces. Yeah wait, yeah, I think someone
6:23
Speaker 1: beat us to that one. It's true. But here the
6:26
Speaker 1: reason that they changed this game up is because they
6:29
Speaker 1: needed to finance the war, right, the Civil War, that is,
6:34
Speaker 1: the Confederacy actually had a little forethought and they issued
6:36
Speaker 1: their own currency. But the Union tried to borrow its
6:40
Speaker 1: way through the war at rapacious interest rates. Right, So
6:44
Speaker 1: in response, the US passed these three legal tender acts
6:48
Speaker 1: that resulted in the issuing of I believe in the
6:50
Speaker 1: neighborhood of four hundred and fifty mill in UH. Legal
6:54
Speaker 1: tender which means what, man, what is legal tender? So
6:58
Speaker 1: legal tender or legal tender you we might be more
7:01
Speaker 1: familiar with it through the slang name greenbacks, which is
7:04
Speaker 1: way cooler and sexier than legal tender. Uh. These were
7:08
Speaker 1: replacements for what we're called demand notes or earlier greenbacks,
7:13
Speaker 1: and essentially they were a form of fiat currency. Legal
7:17
Speaker 1: tender means that they can be used for any debt
7:22
Speaker 1: for like a public debt perhaps the Union with face
7:25
Speaker 1: due to the atrocious interest rates in the war, or
7:29
Speaker 1: a private debt, except that I think they had an uh,
7:33
Speaker 1: they had one exception. Let's see. I Yes, this note
7:36
Speaker 1: is a legal tender for all debts public and private.
7:38
Speaker 1: Accept duties on imports and interest on the public debt,
7:42
Speaker 1: and as redeemable and payment of all loans made to
7:45
Speaker 1: the United States. It's an iou Oh my gosh. Now
7:49
Speaker 1: I thought fiat currency meant that it was backed by
7:53
Speaker 1: just faith in the government. Yeah, the fiat currency means
7:57
Speaker 1: that it's backed by the institute and institutional beliefs. So
8:01
Speaker 1: there are other things that will come along, called silver certificate.
8:04
Speaker 1: That's right. Not only that there were notes backed by coin.
8:08
Speaker 1: There were the silver certificates, There were Federal Reserve notes,
8:11
Speaker 1: and there were national bank notes. So you can find
8:15
Speaker 1: in various various places online you can find a picture
8:20
Speaker 1: of earlier currencies. We should caveat our our timeline here
8:26
Speaker 1: because we said in eighteen sixty two, in March, that's
8:29
Speaker 1: when we have the first wide scale printing of the
8:32
Speaker 1: two dollar bills. There were other private entities like banks
8:36
Speaker 1: printing things prior to that. There were also other two
8:41
Speaker 1: dollar bills before then, but they were they were much
8:44
Speaker 1: smaller in scope and distribution because by the time the
8:48
Speaker 1: US broke with England, or by the time excuse me,
8:51
Speaker 1: the American colonies at that point broke with England, they
8:54
Speaker 1: had been putting out paper currency for nearly a century,
8:58
Speaker 1: but they didn't like continental currency existed but they still
9:04
Speaker 1: hadn't gotten the formula quite right or worked out the process.
9:09
Speaker 1: And you can see in the National Museum of American
9:12
Speaker 1: History you can see examples of this older currency and
9:15
Speaker 1: it just looks pisspard. Oh dude, it looks like something
9:18
Speaker 1: you'd find in a pirate wreck. Yeah, like yeah, and no, yeah,
9:22
Speaker 1: I I see now too, Ben. I have this note
9:23
Speaker 1: that um, they issued forty nine thousand, two dollar bills, UM,
9:27
Speaker 1: and that was for quote bills of credit for the
9:30
Speaker 1: defense of America. It wasn't until almost a century later,
9:33
Speaker 1: on July eleven of eighteen sixty two, the Congress decided
9:37
Speaker 1: to make that two dollar denomination part of the nation's
9:40
Speaker 1: legal tender, as we discussed earlier. So I think we're
9:43
Speaker 1: up to date with the two dollar bill. Let's talk
9:45
Speaker 1: a little bit about a rivalry. I think I know
9:49
Speaker 1: where this is going. A little beef Yeah, two prominent
9:53
Speaker 1: founding fathers were what I like to call beefed up
9:57
Speaker 1: for a long time to have this rivalry. Let's do
10:00
Speaker 1: a slow build up to to those beefed up rivals
10:03
Speaker 1: and explore what this bill actually looked like. Yeah, and
10:06
Speaker 1: also like whose faces appeared, which will lead us to
10:09
Speaker 1: the good question. Um, So these bills and all American
10:15
Speaker 1: legal tender use a process that's called intaglio printing, which
10:19
Speaker 1: is it's really really cool. It's like the opposite of
10:21
Speaker 1: relief printing, UM, which means that it's got these fine lines,
10:25
Speaker 1: these etch deep etchings um in these plates, and the
10:29
Speaker 1: designs are cut or scratched into these plates and they
10:32
Speaker 1: can be copper or zinc or aluminum or plastic or
10:34
Speaker 1: magnesum or even like coated paper, and the ink is
10:38
Speaker 1: rubbed into these grooves and then the paper is placed
10:41
Speaker 1: on top of it, and it requires great amounts of
10:44
Speaker 1: pressure to get that to take yes, and you end
10:47
Speaker 1: up with this really beautiful, fine kind of embossed look.
10:50
Speaker 1: And I think it takes seventy two hours to do
10:53
Speaker 1: each side, at least here in the modern day because
10:55
Speaker 1: of the drying. Right, because there's so much ink on
10:58
Speaker 1: the two dollar bill if you look at either side
11:01
Speaker 1: of it, the printing, which is beautiful, is very detailed. Also,
11:05
Speaker 1: the coolest part is if you get a chance, go
11:07
Speaker 1: online and watch the engravers making the plates. What a
11:11
Speaker 1: weird rarefied job. It's pretty cool too. You see them
11:14
Speaker 1: with those what do you call that a loop like
11:15
Speaker 1: a jeweler's loop monocle looking thing where they're examining them
11:19
Speaker 1: to make sure they're perfect. And each plate has a
11:22
Speaker 1: of specific code that ends up on the front end
11:25
Speaker 1: back of the note and can even tell you like
11:27
Speaker 1: where it was printed. And the thing about the two
11:30
Speaker 1: is that it actually has some of the most ornate
11:33
Speaker 1: intaglio printing of any US note um And that's because
11:37
Speaker 1: the back of it has a very large scene in
11:41
Speaker 1: the middle, much much more elaborate than than some other
11:44
Speaker 1: bills that were used to Yeah, a lot of people
11:47
Speaker 1: think that the the back end, for lack of a
11:50
Speaker 1: better phrase, of the two dollar bill is the signing
11:54
Speaker 1: of the Declaration of Independence. However, we are going to
11:58
Speaker 1: give you a gift, friends and brews. Now you will
12:01
Speaker 1: be armed with a small bit of trivia for your
12:04
Speaker 1: next sire. Let's just call it truth man, let's drop
12:07
Speaker 1: some knowledge, some truth. It's time for a two dollars
12:10
Speaker 1: worth of truth bombs here, folks. It is not actually
12:13
Speaker 1: called the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Yeah, it's
12:16
Speaker 1: just the Declaration of Independence. And it's a painting by
12:21
Speaker 1: John Turnbull, and it just depicts the presentation of the
12:25
Speaker 1: signed document to the Continental Committee, of which Thomas Jefferson
12:31
Speaker 1: was a member. And I don't have the exact names, um,
12:34
Speaker 1: but some of the lesser players I think they were
12:36
Speaker 1: like forty two people pictured in this. Um. They had
12:39
Speaker 1: to do a redone version of this for the bill
12:44
Speaker 1: so that they could actually fit it all into that
12:45
Speaker 1: little picture hole. That's what I'm calling it. That's the
12:48
Speaker 1: picture hole. UM call it the frame. Maybe kind of
12:51
Speaker 1: cropped out some dudes that they felt were superfluous, And
12:55
Speaker 1: the fact that I don't know their names probably speaks volumes.
12:59
Speaker 1: You can find, of course, a list of the names.
13:02
Speaker 1: It's not too far out there to say many of
13:06
Speaker 1: those names would be unfamiliar to the average you know
13:10
Speaker 1: us kid today, but there are so many we aren't.
13:15
Speaker 1: We aren't going to go through the whole list. That
13:16
Speaker 1: would be uh, wait for it, ridiculous. Yeah, we got there,
13:21
Speaker 1: and I see what you did. But you know, Ben
13:23
Speaker 1: Franklin's there, Thomas Jefferson is, as you mentioned, Noel. Also,
13:27
Speaker 1: George Clinton is there, like of Parliament funkadelic. Yep, he's
13:32
Speaker 1: in the back. No, No, not not that George Clinton. Unfortunately, Uh,
13:37
Speaker 1: he is a time traveler a funk, but you can
13:44
Speaker 1: see the entire list of these people. The reason we're
13:46
Speaker 1: bringing this up is because if you look at the
13:50
Speaker 1: detail of this engraving, you can see how this this
13:55
Speaker 1: separates a two dollar bill in terms of sophistication from
13:59
Speaker 1: many other examples of US currency. And one of the
14:03
Speaker 1: things that caught in our minds was, I, I don't
14:08
Speaker 1: know if you had ever heard this growing up, but
14:10
Speaker 1: people have told me in the past that two dollar
14:13
Speaker 1: bills were bad luck. You had mentioned that earlier, Ben,
14:16
Speaker 1: but I had not heard that. Um, does that mean
14:19
Speaker 1: I should stop sleeping on my mattress is full of
14:21
Speaker 1: two dollar bills? I you know, I I don't know.
14:25
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know how it works, bad luck
14:28
Speaker 1: or no, they're incredibly comfortable. Well, of course, it's a
14:31
Speaker 1: comfortable mattress and good night's sleep. The two dollar bill,
14:34
Speaker 1: like all US currency, is printed on very high quality paper.
14:38
Speaker 1: But it may even be a mistake to call it
14:42
Speaker 1: a paper. Yeah, it's actually a fine blend of cotton
14:46
Speaker 1: and lenin. In fact, some of my hoarded two dollar
14:49
Speaker 1: bills I have sewn together into a delightful sheet set.
14:53
Speaker 1: Oh that's cool. You could also make a cape that
14:56
Speaker 1: would be awesome pun show perhaps perhaps No, no, not both.
15:01
Speaker 1: You can't wear him. At the same time that people
15:04
Speaker 1: wouldn't take you as seriously. Poncho and a cape. People
15:07
Speaker 1: would be like that guy needs to be more definitive
15:09
Speaker 1: in his decisions. A poncho is kind of just like
15:12
Speaker 1: a cape all around, a light cape, you know, yeah, exactly, Yeah,
15:17
Speaker 1: that would be extreme to wear a poncho. Do you
15:19
Speaker 1: think anybody has front capes? Oh? Yeah, aprons? Never mind,
15:23
Speaker 1: moving on. Yeah, this this stuff, it's got a surprising
15:26
Speaker 1: amount of cotton in it, which helps with the durability
15:28
Speaker 1: because when we think about it, if you had typical
15:32
Speaker 1: printing paper and stuff was printed on there, it would
15:35
Speaker 1: be easier to counterfeit, but it would be much more
15:38
Speaker 1: vulnerable to wear and tear. And that's a whole big
15:40
Speaker 1: part of the processes they used to make these bills
15:44
Speaker 1: is to make them hard to duplicate um. In fact,
15:48
Speaker 1: there's a whole another step in the printing process where
15:51
Speaker 1: all of those little stamps and seals, those are all
15:55
Speaker 1: done in a separate, completely separate layer, so it's like
15:58
Speaker 1: a different set of ink, and it's you know, it's very,
16:01
Speaker 1: very difficult to successfully counterfeit. And did you yeah, and
16:05
Speaker 1: did you know that one company supplies all of the paper.
16:09
Speaker 1: It's a place called the Crane Company. I did not
16:11
Speaker 1: know that, but it makes sense, right, if you could
16:13
Speaker 1: just get it anywhere, that'd be no good, you know,
16:16
Speaker 1: But talk about a great business model to those guys
16:19
Speaker 1: are set. Yeah, And in the film that we're talking about,
16:21
Speaker 1: the documentary about the two r bill, it shows this
16:24
Speaker 1: process and the folks that craft and maintain these plates,
16:28
Speaker 1: they're really like, you know, artisans. I mean, it really
16:32
Speaker 1: is a very high precision skill to be able to
16:36
Speaker 1: work with these I mean, you're, like I said, they
16:38
Speaker 1: are doing a lot of it by hand, and it's
16:41
Speaker 1: very intricate form of printmaking essentially right, And this process
16:45
Speaker 1: has proven to be beneficial for the US, and a
16:50
Speaker 1: lot of other countries have modeled some behaviors off of this.
16:55
Speaker 1: But I want to get back to I don't want
16:57
Speaker 1: to get lost in the conversation. And we lost the beef,
16:59
Speaker 1: well lost the bad luck luck and then because I
17:03
Speaker 1: was yeah, yeah, yeah, So a lot of us have
17:05
Speaker 1: heard that the two dollar bill is associated with bad luck,
17:09
Speaker 1: and the question is why because, as it turns out,
17:11
Speaker 1: it is not associated with any specific tragic event or
17:15
Speaker 1: a murder. And yes, the forty two people that are
17:19
Speaker 1: in the in the Trumbull painting or engraving rather are
17:23
Speaker 1: all dead. But that's just because that's what happens to
17:26
Speaker 1: be the way of the old white dude. It was
17:29
Speaker 1: not unusual. Uh And we have to dig into a
17:33
Speaker 1: little bit of speculation to find where this superstition occurred.
17:36
Speaker 1: Superstition is the correct word. It's kind of like four
17:40
Speaker 1: leaf clovers being lucky, you know. Uh So two dollar
17:43
Speaker 1: bills were tied to brothels early in the twentieth century.
17:49
Speaker 1: You could use a two dollar and it kind of continues,
17:53
Speaker 1: but you could use a two dollar bill for a
17:57
Speaker 1: m well, we're family show. Maybe the best way to
17:59
Speaker 1: put it is a a very quick experience, you know
18:05
Speaker 1: what I mean, not the premium treatment whatever that was. Also,
18:09
Speaker 1: two dollars used to be a standard betting price point
18:12
Speaker 1: in horse races. That is pretty cool, man. I'm gonna
18:15
Speaker 1: go ahead and drop this now. It's because it's neat
18:17
Speaker 1: and in associate with what you're saying. But there's a story,
18:20
Speaker 1: um in the modern day of two dollar bills being
18:23
Speaker 1: associated with not brothels, but strip clubs. Gentlemen. I think
18:27
Speaker 1: we talked about this on a previous episode, that Oregon
18:30
Speaker 1: Portland in fact has the highest number of strip clubs
18:33
Speaker 1: like per capita or something like that, which is still
18:36
Speaker 1: so amazing. You know. I learned that from my uber
18:38
Speaker 1: driver when you were visiting. Yeah, and that you do
18:41
Speaker 1: so you mentioned that, and that kind of blew my mind.
18:42
Speaker 1: I was not expecting it. But um, as it turns out,
18:45
Speaker 1: there's one strip club in particular called Club Diablo UM,
18:51
Speaker 1: where the proprietor thought it would be really clever to
18:55
Speaker 1: get a whole bunch of two dollar bills because you
18:57
Speaker 1: can get them easily. Just get them, get them today,
19:00
Speaker 1: get him at the bank, um, and stain them in
19:04
Speaker 1: red ink to make them look like they were blood stained,
19:08
Speaker 1: and then he would give them out as change as
19:10
Speaker 1: kind of a gimmick in his establishment. But it turns
19:14
Speaker 1: out that they ended up circulating all over town and
19:18
Speaker 1: people stopped taking them and it became an issue. It's
19:22
Speaker 1: like it's a Charlotte letter, and the word got back
19:26
Speaker 1: that it was all as a result of of this,
19:29
Speaker 1: this strip club impresario's little gimmick which was meant to
19:33
Speaker 1: connect his place with the vampire film from Dust Till
19:36
Speaker 1: Dawn by Robert Rodriguez and with Quentin Tarantino in it,
19:39
Speaker 1: where there is like a strip club, you know, populated
19:42
Speaker 1: by blood sucking vampire ladies. Um. And he actually got
19:48
Speaker 1: the law on him pretty hard. The c I a
19:51
Speaker 1: UM was investigating him and the FBI actually came to
19:55
Speaker 1: the bar. And you know what, that wasn't enough to
19:58
Speaker 1: spook him. This guy, by the way, has it made
20:00
Speaker 1: using strip clubby name of Johnny Zukle. Johnny Zukle. Pretty
20:04
Speaker 1: you gotta say it with a little bit of rasp
20:05
Speaker 1: in your voice, Johnny Johnny Zukle. He he was not shaken. Um.
20:09
Speaker 1: It wasn't until you know, things started to escalate that
20:12
Speaker 1: he finally backed down. Um. But just wanted to drop
20:15
Speaker 1: that in there. And because I think that's that that
20:16
Speaker 1: ties in with what you were saying. But let's go
20:18
Speaker 1: back back to the back, back back to the beef,
20:21
Speaker 1: back to the backy, back to the beef. Let's see
20:29
Speaker 1: who's beefed up. So we mentioned that in terms of
20:32
Speaker 1: bad luck, the superstition probably originates more from people's perception
20:38
Speaker 1: what the money was used for, and as no point out,
20:41
Speaker 1: that's still around a little bit today, but it's not
20:44
Speaker 1: associated with a tragedy. We did a little bit of foreshadowing.
20:48
Speaker 1: We mentioned the people on the back of the bill,
20:51
Speaker 1: but let's pay off the foreshadowing. Now, who are the
20:54
Speaker 1: people on the front, because they change over time. Well,
20:57
Speaker 1: remember when we were talking about those um early versions
21:01
Speaker 1: of currency, when all of the regions I guess are
21:05
Speaker 1: smaller areas could have their own There were in those
21:07
Speaker 1: days around a thousand completely unique two dollar bills just
21:11
Speaker 1: floating around, and we mentioned what a problem that was.
21:14
Speaker 1: Then enter the Civil War. We now have legal tender
21:18
Speaker 1: and the first two dollar bill it's officially issued has
21:22
Speaker 1: Alexander Hamilton's Alexander Hamilton's Alexander Hamilton's like the the guy
21:29
Speaker 1: from both the musical and also fun fact, a real
21:33
Speaker 1: life founding father of the United States. Very true, he
21:36
Speaker 1: along with his nemesis. I don't know if that's fair.
21:40
Speaker 1: We're probably creating a bit of a false narrative there,
21:43
Speaker 1: But no, no, they had issues. They definitely had issues.
21:45
Speaker 1: Hamilton's and Jefferson both founding fathers. They had very different
21:49
Speaker 1: ideas of what the government should be. Hamilton's Federalist party
21:52
Speaker 1: wanted to centralize the government, um wanted to represent the
21:56
Speaker 1: interests of trade, manufacturing, big city, you know, cosmopolitan ideas.
22:01
Speaker 1: Thought these were forces that would be crucial for progress
22:04
Speaker 1: in this new society. Strong central government, strong central currency,
22:09
Speaker 1: public debt. He didn't like, Radicals, didn't want him, didn't
22:14
Speaker 1: trust him anyone to maintain good relationships with England because
22:17
Speaker 1: they would be a trading partner, you know, right. And
22:20
Speaker 1: Hamilton's economic plan for the nation included making a bank,
22:25
Speaker 1: national bank, like the kind that existed in England, for
22:28
Speaker 1: the purpose of maintaining public credit. One of the very
22:32
Speaker 1: controversial things that he proposed at the time was to
22:36
Speaker 1: consolidate state's debts. And Jefferson and his faction Republicans also
22:43
Speaker 1: known as the Republican Democrats at times Republican dash Democrats.
22:47
Speaker 1: It's a weird one. This faction took the position that,
22:51
Speaker 1: let's say, Virginia should not be responsible for debts accrued
22:56
Speaker 1: by New York. So it's a very almost isolation anist
23:00
Speaker 1: states rights kind of vibe federalist anti federalists exactly. And
23:05
Speaker 1: if Hamilton's is the city mouse, Jefferson is the country
23:08
Speaker 1: mouse because the Republican Party wanted to mainly take care
23:12
Speaker 1: of agriculture and agrarian have an agrarian society, did not
23:17
Speaker 1: trust bankers unconcerned with manufacturing and commerce. Again, like you said, Ben,
23:23
Speaker 1: all about these states rights, self sufficient communities. Um, there's
23:27
Speaker 1: a great quote where he said, I am not a
23:28
Speaker 1: friend to a very energetic government, right right, So this
23:35
Speaker 1: is weird because originally is Alexander Hamilton's on that first
23:41
Speaker 1: two dollar bill and that was because, of course he
23:44
Speaker 1: got his way. He was the Secretary of the Treasury.
23:47
Speaker 1: He got that National Bank that was established in February
23:50
Speaker 1: of seventeen ninety one. And then a little time goes
23:54
Speaker 1: by eighteen sixty two rolls around that too, that deuce
23:57
Speaker 1: comes out. Uh, we got old alex Hamilton's face on
24:00
Speaker 1: the front because like you said, he was the Secretary
24:02
Speaker 1: of the Treasury. And I guess maybe you want I
24:05
Speaker 1: don't know, do you think he wanted it? Do you
24:06
Speaker 1: think he pushed for it? You get care and I
24:07
Speaker 1: don't know's you know, you have to wonder is it
24:10
Speaker 1: awkward to bring that up in conversation, to be the
24:13
Speaker 1: person who says, you know what would what would be
24:15
Speaker 1: a great portrait, guys, because we're doing portraits for these
24:18
Speaker 1: for these dollars. I'm in Secretary of the Treasury, so
24:21
Speaker 1: I think like we could do an equal but we
24:23
Speaker 1: should We should probably do me. That just seems very weird.
24:27
Speaker 1: And there's something Kanye west Ish about it, you know,
24:30
Speaker 1: Kanye West is talking about is it dragon power these days?
24:34
Speaker 1: Or egal egal power, Eagle power? It should be Eagle
24:36
Speaker 1: Bays dragon power. I think it's dragon energy, dragon energy.
24:39
Speaker 1: Thank you. That's been Casey on the case. And you
24:42
Speaker 1: may be asking yourself the question we asked ourselves off air.
24:46
Speaker 1: Uh A dragon energy and higher blood related. Did they
24:49
Speaker 1: play some sort of role in the publication two dollar bill? Uh?
24:53
Speaker 1: That is currently lost to history? But right, and if
24:56
Speaker 1: you have any ideas, you know what else has lost history?
24:59
Speaker 1: And it's that Why did Jefferson swoop in and knock
25:03
Speaker 1: his old nemesis Hamilton's off of the bill? Yeah? In
25:06
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine, just a few years later, Thomas Jefferson's
25:11
Speaker 1: portrait replaces Hamilton's and it's used on the two dollar
25:14
Speaker 1: note for the first time, and it's been used ever since.
25:18
Speaker 1: But what I'm saying as no one. I have not
25:20
Speaker 1: found any sources saying why this happened, Why did Hamilton's
25:24
Speaker 1: fall out of favor? Right, And there's there's a really
25:27
Speaker 1: cool part in this documentary where in one of the
25:32
Speaker 1: historians explains when when asked about all these different portraits
25:37
Speaker 1: that are on various forms of currency in the US,
25:41
Speaker 1: he says that the history is largely unwritten, and many
25:44
Speaker 1: times the best thing historians can say is just that
25:48
Speaker 1: it is ultimately up to the Secretary of the Treasury
25:52
Speaker 1: to decide. So Alexander Hamilton's is no dies, so he
25:58
Speaker 1: certainly had no saying. Neither did Thomas Jefferson. Maybe our
26:01
Speaker 1: best bet is to ask ourselves who the Secretary of
26:06
Speaker 1: the Treasury was in eighteen sixty nine when that picture
26:09
Speaker 1: change occurs. That's Hugh McCullough from Indiana, the secretary. Maybe
26:15
Speaker 1: he was beefed up with Hamilton's two and just wanted to,
26:17
Speaker 1: you know, give his legacy a good thrashing. Perhaps perhaps,
26:22
Speaker 1: Oh and let me amend that same year mccullo was
26:26
Speaker 1: replaced by George S. Bookedwell, who also may have been
26:31
Speaker 1: beefed up with Hamilton's very volatile times in the Secretary
26:35
Speaker 1: of the Treasury, and and like you said earlier, these
26:37
Speaker 1: bills were popular because of the nature of of wages,
26:42
Speaker 1: and the two sort of two would be like the
26:45
Speaker 1: way we might drop a hondo today, you know, to
26:48
Speaker 1: really throw throw a weight around. And there was also
26:52
Speaker 1: the Gold Panic in eighteen sixty nine, so maybe those events,
26:57
Speaker 1: those events tied into it. So we should probably do
26:59
Speaker 1: an episode on some of those catastrophic financial disasters that
27:03
Speaker 1: occurred in the eighteen hundreds that remain relatively obscure today.
27:08
Speaker 1: You know, I love anything with panic in it, Gold Panic,
27:10
Speaker 1: Satanic panic, Satanic panic, panic at the disco, manic panic.
27:14
Speaker 1: Remember that haired out hair dye? Yeah, yeah, skate shops
27:17
Speaker 1: back in the day, back at gad zooks. Do you
27:19
Speaker 1: ever die your hair bright pink or red? Do you
27:20
Speaker 1: ever have a you never went through a phase like that.
27:23
Speaker 1: Our our coworker and um compatriot, Holly fry Gate, brought
27:28
Speaker 1: me some silver hair dye today because I have this
27:31
Speaker 1: really dope silver gray gray streak in my hair. Got
27:34
Speaker 1: characterized it as being dope because I'm just a fan.
27:36
Speaker 1: It just isn't just the right place. People think that
27:38
Speaker 1: I did it on purpose, but I didn't but Holly's like,
27:40
Speaker 1: you know, you need to really take that up a
27:41
Speaker 1: notch and just make it like shiny silver. I thought
27:44
Speaker 1: she was joking like Rogue in the Oh wait silver
27:48
Speaker 1: not white silver. Not well so she's totally like Rode
27:51
Speaker 1: the next Men. But she presented me with a tube
27:53
Speaker 1: of hair stuff. Maybe congratulations, thanks man. Yeah, and we're
27:58
Speaker 1: gonna drop it in. You gonna don't do it over
28:01
Speaker 1: the weekend. I don't want to hurt how he's feelings.
28:03
Speaker 1: Does it wash out or is it a permanent one?
28:05
Speaker 1: It looks permanent. Look it's a commitment, commitment. Maybe try
28:09
Speaker 1: some some of that washout dive first, see how you feel,
28:11
Speaker 1: get some of the theater stuff that you just sprayed.
28:14
Speaker 1: I was just sort of like, Holly, I don't think
28:16
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not lacking. I'm good with this. She's like, no,
28:19
Speaker 1: it can be better. You can take it up a notch.
28:21
Speaker 1: But anyway, we digress. Best of intentions always, no, Holly's
28:24
Speaker 1: the best, so so yes. Panics aside and motivations somewhat
28:31
Speaker 1: unknown or murky, The fact remains that Thomas Jefferson replaced
28:35
Speaker 1: Alexander Hamilton's on the two dollar bill in eighteen sixty nine.
28:39
Speaker 1: And the fact also remains that over time, a good
28:42
Speaker 1: bit of time, the two sort of fell out of favor.
28:46
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And it had lower printing numbers starting in
28:50
Speaker 1: about the nineteen fifties, and this is what led to
28:54
Speaker 1: for a time the two dollar bill becoming the rarest
28:57
Speaker 1: current denomination of US currency, and people started to hoard
29:02
Speaker 1: two dollar bills. But as a result, this decreased the
29:05
Speaker 1: circulation even more. It's right. It's a really great Mental
29:09
Speaker 1: Faces article about the curious case of the two dollar bill,
29:13
Speaker 1: and they talk about the idea of the two dollar
29:16
Speaker 1: build sort of being surrounded by circular logic, one of
29:19
Speaker 1: those notions being that no one uses them because no
29:23
Speaker 1: one uses them, right, Yeah, So they're not printed because
29:28
Speaker 1: people are disinclined to use them, But people are disinclined
29:30
Speaker 1: to use them because they're not printed very often, right,
29:34
Speaker 1: And they're always something worth commenting on. Their Many people
29:38
Speaker 1: find them to be remarkable in some way or memorable,
29:42
Speaker 1: which is why at modern day gentlemen's club, gentleman's parlor,
29:49
Speaker 1: gentlemen's lobby. I'm just thinking of different words for building.
29:52
Speaker 1: It's a lounge. There we go, there we go uh.
29:56
Speaker 1: In this article by Hannah Keyser, we do see that
30:00
Speaker 1: this logic works against at least the the prevalence of
30:05
Speaker 1: the two dollar bill, uh, even if it does help
30:08
Speaker 1: its popularity. And this eventually leads to the federal ment
30:15
Speaker 1: just throwing up their hands and say no more. Right. Yeah,
30:18
Speaker 1: it was in nineteen sixty six that they decided to
30:21
Speaker 1: discontinue this particular denomination of currency. Um. So it stayed
30:28
Speaker 1: entirely out of production, out of print for ten years. Yeah.
30:33
Speaker 1: And the Economic Review said that they were pulling this
30:38
Speaker 1: because people weren't using it, you know why, people were
30:42
Speaker 1: hoarding them in their houses. But then one faithful day
30:46
Speaker 1: April thirteen, the spring day of nineteen and seventy six,
30:50
Speaker 1: the centennial. That's right, the two dollar bill was issued
30:54
Speaker 1: once again for the first time in a decade. UM,
30:58
Speaker 1: and it was announced by President Nixon. Nixon, the two
31:03
Speaker 1: dollar barrels back. What is that? I think I think
31:08
Speaker 1: we get there. It was. It was crazy Nixon. Uh,
31:12
Speaker 1: wrestler Nixon. He's kind of tough to say two dollar
31:15
Speaker 1: to dollar. I see you really, you've got the cadence,
31:18
Speaker 1: you've got the tone. More. I think we we've got
31:22
Speaker 1: you and I have some practice ahead of us. I
31:24
Speaker 1: think if we combined our impressions, we'd be pretty close
31:26
Speaker 1: to the mark. But you've got the Bark down sort
31:28
Speaker 1: of Vultron, the Nixon, You've got Yourse've got the bark
31:31
Speaker 1: and the quaver down. So so we, uh, we have
31:36
Speaker 1: some a montage ahead of us, you and I off
31:40
Speaker 1: air when we when we get Nixon up. Yeah, we're
31:43
Speaker 1: gonna have a Nixon off Yeah, we heard your emails.
31:47
Speaker 1: At first we thought you were joking, But I don't
31:49
Speaker 1: think people are joking noll. I think they want us
31:52
Speaker 1: to do a full to go full Nixon. Well, I
31:55
Speaker 1: think if we're gonna do that, then it probably has
31:58
Speaker 1: to be a bonus episode just for the uper fans. Yeah,
32:02
Speaker 1: we don't want to alienate out there. I was thinking
32:05
Speaker 1: about that. So what when someone tunes in for the
32:08
Speaker 1: first time and they're they're like, who are these cars?
32:22
Speaker 1: Even the sound effect has to be in a Nixon voice.
32:24
Speaker 1: Everything must be Nixon. We could get the Nixon filter
32:27
Speaker 1: we've been talking about so much on our vision board.
32:30
Speaker 1: So Nixon announces this and there's a little bit of
32:33
Speaker 1: finger wagging from a New York Times article about the
32:37
Speaker 1: reintroduction where they say, oh, dish it man, I don't
32:40
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about. I didn't read this one
32:41
Speaker 1: where they say public reluctance to accept and use the
32:45
Speaker 1: two dollar bill was the principal cause of its discontinuous
32:49
Speaker 1: nine years ago, and the main reason for that reluctance
32:52
Speaker 1: was the relative scarcity of the note in circulation. So
32:56
Speaker 1: to me, that comes off like the tone of it
32:58
Speaker 1: is okay, kid, it's America, do better this time. You
33:03
Speaker 1: can have it back, But remember what happened? Like you're
33:05
Speaker 1: they're giving like you're giving a kid a toy back.
33:07
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, though, America did not play nice, and
33:11
Speaker 1: there was a functional reason beyond just a delightful little
33:15
Speaker 1: bicentennial gimmick for releasing this. They needed there was a
33:19
Speaker 1: gas shortage, I believe, and they needed to release a
33:23
Speaker 1: certain value amount of currency, but not they didn't want
33:27
Speaker 1: to print as many ones, so they were able to
33:29
Speaker 1: print like half as many two's. And I'm no economist,
33:34
Speaker 1: but I guess that's what you do. So what is
33:37
Speaker 1: this going to accomplish, ben, is my question to you. Well,
33:40
Speaker 1: it's going to give you more bang for your buck
33:43
Speaker 1: about twice as much you get in terms of printing
33:45
Speaker 1: costs exactly twice as much, exactly twice as much. Also
33:49
Speaker 1: not an economist, we should note, but this, this gives
33:53
Speaker 1: an injection of cash into a an economy that is
33:58
Speaker 1: um in dire knee. It's true, and it did create
34:02
Speaker 1: I didn't create. It just was scarce because it hadn't
34:05
Speaker 1: been in circulation for ten years. So you know, I
34:08
Speaker 1: guess they don't know how they introduced currency. They must
34:12
Speaker 1: do it a little at a time, obviously, you know,
34:14
Speaker 1: over a large area. I think it's a T shirt cannon. Okay,
34:18
Speaker 1: that'd be cool. I think it's Man. I mean like
34:21
Speaker 1: it was sort of like Joker in Man with the trust,
34:24
Speaker 1: you know, and he's got the gas and the balloons
34:27
Speaker 1: and all that, and that'd be cool. That's probably the
34:29
Speaker 1: most efficient way to do it. Again by centennial parade.
34:32
Speaker 1: Again we're not economist, but we would be great at
34:36
Speaker 1: this parade. It's and and now, though you're right, people
34:40
Speaker 1: didn't play nice because they started to see this as
34:44
Speaker 1: as much of a collectible as it was a functional
34:47
Speaker 1: piece of currency exactly. So people didn't spend it. No,
34:50
Speaker 1: they like went to the post office and got a
34:52
Speaker 1: stamp the show the date that they got it, and
34:55
Speaker 1: like a notary type stamp, like a postage stamp, and
34:58
Speaker 1: a rubber cancelation stamp, and it made it seem like
35:01
Speaker 1: a keepsake. Interesting see it sort of to me sounds
35:03
Speaker 1: like when they released those fancy commemorative coins and a
35:07
Speaker 1: lot of I wonder if that creates a circulation problem
35:09
Speaker 1: with quarters. Probably not. I don't know. They made a
35:12
Speaker 1: bunch of Yeah, that's true, um, but again doesn't quite
35:17
Speaker 1: accomplish what they were after. But they don't pull it. Again.
35:20
Speaker 1: There's still two dollar bills in circulation. I don't think
35:24
Speaker 1: they print them particularly often. They certainly print them less
35:28
Speaker 1: often than you know, the standard denominations that were used
35:31
Speaker 1: to I don't have an exact figure on that. I
35:33
Speaker 1: believe again from the excellent documentary that we checked out
35:38
Speaker 1: by John Bernardo, I believe that one of the experts
35:42
Speaker 1: at the Federal Mints says that since nineteen fifty six,
35:46
Speaker 1: there have only been nine printings of the two. They're
35:49
Speaker 1: so cool about it. They don't call they don't call
35:51
Speaker 1: it a two dollar bill. They call it the two,
35:54
Speaker 1: the two, which makes it sound so classy. I learned
35:57
Speaker 1: a new word. What is it too? I think you
35:59
Speaker 1: probably know this one, but um new mismatics, Yes, yes, yes,
36:04
Speaker 1: or a new mismatist, collector and enthusiast of currency and coins.
36:10
Speaker 1: And they have an awesome Uh, they have an awesome
36:13
Speaker 1: convention in Florida with an acronym that I don't have
36:17
Speaker 1: to ask. I already know you and I both love it.
36:20
Speaker 1: It is the Florida United New Mismatists Convention or fun Baby.
36:28
Speaker 1: It sounds like a barrel of laughs to me. Oh god,
36:32
Speaker 1: I hope they are as proud of that as I am.
36:34
Speaker 1: Oh man, Yeah, I know, it's good. You should be
36:35
Speaker 1: proud and they should be proud that you're so proud
36:38
Speaker 1: of them. But He's the thing. There's a lot of
36:39
Speaker 1: misconceptions even today about the two dollar bills. People still
36:43
Speaker 1: think they're scarce, and while it may be scarce compared
36:46
Speaker 1: to other denominations, there are over one billion two dollar
36:49
Speaker 1: bills in circulation today right right. You can, as as
36:54
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, you can go to a bank and
36:57
Speaker 1: specifically request a large amount of two dollar bills, and
37:00
Speaker 1: it turns out that you probably wouldn't be the first
37:03
Speaker 1: person to do that, because two dollar bills in in
37:08
Speaker 1: recent years, especially post you know, the reintroduction of the bill,
37:13
Speaker 1: they have become signs of protest, right, not not just
37:17
Speaker 1: this is this is different from the gentleman's lounge throw
37:21
Speaker 1: in red paint on stuff. That's more of a marketing ploy.
37:24
Speaker 1: I guess right, yeah, I agree. But but you and
37:28
Speaker 1: I and our researcher Christopher Hasiotis found some really cool
37:33
Speaker 1: examples of two dollar bills being used as a protest. Right.
37:38
Speaker 1: Did you hear the one from the mid eighties around
37:41
Speaker 1: an event called Black Dollar Days Black Dollar Days, No
37:46
Speaker 1: School me late later? Well, the a c P had
37:49
Speaker 1: this event that they dubbed Black Dollar Days that was
37:53
Speaker 1: from September two through the ninth, where in order to
37:57
Speaker 1: show the spending power, the massive spending power in American community,
38:04
Speaker 1: remember what they do, they urged they're just black consumers
38:08
Speaker 1: in twenty nine cities across the country to only spend
38:12
Speaker 1: two dollar bills and one dollar Susan B Anthony coins
38:17
Speaker 1: to demonstrate how much economic heft they had, with Raymond
38:22
Speaker 1: Johnson Jr. The president of the u w a CP
38:25
Speaker 1: s l A Chapter, saying that black spent well over
38:28
Speaker 1: one d billion on goods and services from non minority
38:32
Speaker 1: firms in ur and yet the corporations purchased less than
38:37
Speaker 1: one percent of that amount from black vendors. Um. He's saying,
38:41
Speaker 1: we're not asking for anything except our fair share. So
38:45
Speaker 1: in using those two dollar bills, in those Susan bees um,
38:48
Speaker 1: they collected somewhere the neighborhood of five million dollars in purchases. Uh.
38:54
Speaker 1: In in that that that very short span of time,
38:57
Speaker 1: and that's that's a noble one. You know. That's thing
39:00
Speaker 1: I think everybody can really get behind because that's a
39:02
Speaker 1: way to speak truth to power, you know, vote with
39:06
Speaker 1: your vote with your purchasing ability. As heartless as it sounds,
39:11
Speaker 1: that makes a difference to corporations. They're not the only
39:14
Speaker 1: people protesting either. We found a case where nudists did
39:19
Speaker 1: something very similar. I did not see this one, Ben, Please.
39:23
Speaker 1: So in Landa Lakes, Florida, Uh sorry, they make the butter.
39:27
Speaker 1: I you know it should be, but I think they
39:30
Speaker 1: just didn't check the list of cities that already existed
39:33
Speaker 1: when they named at Landa Lake's do the nudists cover
39:35
Speaker 1: their bodies and butter? Uh? You know what? Statistically, probably
39:39
Speaker 1: at least one of them has it. You can use
39:41
Speaker 1: it as like a sun tanning solution. I thought that
39:44
Speaker 1: was dangerous. Whatever, man, you just live your life. Tell
39:48
Speaker 1: me about the butter time. We're here for a good time,
39:50
Speaker 1: not a long time, right. Uh. Yes, So these nudists
39:54
Speaker 1: in Landa Lakes, Florida's Central Florida launched a campaign where
39:58
Speaker 1: they decided to also buy everything with two dollar bills
40:02
Speaker 1: to show the local merchants, uh, how much of an
40:06
Speaker 1: impact they make. And this was nudists in general, this
40:10
Speaker 1: specific community is the nudist dollar. Yeah, it was. It
40:14
Speaker 1: was an idea created or proposed by Chuck Foster, who
40:18
Speaker 1: runs the Caliente Resort. I thought you'd like that name.
40:22
Speaker 1: That sounds spicy. Um And you know, uh, in a
40:27
Speaker 1: stunning turn of events, I feel like we're going from
40:29
Speaker 1: most culturally valuable to least maybe well act, I don't know.
40:33
Speaker 1: I would maybe flip yours with with the one I'm
40:35
Speaker 1: about to talk about. Maybe tell me what you think. A. Yeah,
40:38
Speaker 1: there's a local organization in Alger County in Michigan, UM
40:44
Speaker 1: that decided to mount a statewide effort to show their
40:48
Speaker 1: support of medical cannabis and push for a bigger, more
40:54
Speaker 1: widespread adoption of legalization in the state. And that was
40:57
Speaker 1: back in two thousand eight. And if I'm had to
41:00
Speaker 1: correct me, if I wrong, is Michigan gone legal? So
41:03
Speaker 1: many places, it seems, are are changing that quickly. I
41:07
Speaker 1: think it's up for it's up for political debate marijuana
41:12
Speaker 1: legalization maybe on their November ballot, you know what the
41:16
Speaker 1: but they do have medical cannabis. Okay, that is on
41:19
Speaker 1: the books. This is not on the books. This is
41:22
Speaker 1: what they were pushing for. Can necessarily credit the two
41:24
Speaker 1: dollar scheme making that happen, but it's certainly UM did
41:28
Speaker 1: a good job of showing lawmakers. Something that's very important
41:31
Speaker 1: with these cases often is that people spend money. People
41:35
Speaker 1: who nudists spend money. Sure, African Americans spend money. We'd
41:41
Speaker 1: had spend money, and everybody spends money, and everybody should
41:44
Speaker 1: be treated fairly. We saw another example where gay rights
41:49
Speaker 1: advocates took the same approach using two dollar bills. And
41:53
Speaker 1: this was this was a reaction to the Proposition eight
41:57
Speaker 1: initiative in California, remember that, Yeah, yeah, And so they
42:02
Speaker 1: did some stuff that I thought it was really cool.
42:05
Speaker 1: There were people protesting by uh calling in gay quote
42:10
Speaker 1: unquote gay to work. Sure, and they did the same
42:12
Speaker 1: thing as then double a CP did with two dollar
42:14
Speaker 1: bills and they were transparent, uh in citing then double
42:19
Speaker 1: a CPS earlier work. Oh, that's cool, credit work, credit
42:22
Speaker 1: is due. Yeah. And this article from A O. L
42:24
Speaker 1: by Jason Cochrane UM titled gay rights advocates pondered best
42:28
Speaker 1: way to flex their economic power. They decided that this
42:32
Speaker 1: two dollar bill method, which if I wasn't clear, that's
42:34
Speaker 1: also what the what the pot people did, um was
42:36
Speaker 1: decided they would spend only two dollar bills to show
42:39
Speaker 1: their economic impact directly to the community. Because you know
42:44
Speaker 1: shopkeepers and banks, and you count the two dollar bills
42:46
Speaker 1: that you got, you can see where the impact is
42:49
Speaker 1: coming from, and you know who spent those. But that
42:52
Speaker 1: with the whole calling in gay to work thing, a
42:55
Speaker 1: lot of members of the community didn't think that was
42:58
Speaker 1: a very focused effort, and it seemed kind of counterproductive
43:02
Speaker 1: and it didn't really hit the way they wanted to,
43:05
Speaker 1: which was to show their actual spending power, which has
43:09
Speaker 1: been estimated in America UM that the gay community contributes
43:13
Speaker 1: something like seven billion dollars to the economy. Wow, And
43:17
Speaker 1: I believe this also happened in two thousand and eight,
43:20
Speaker 1: didn't it. It's the same same year as the Michigan protest, right,
43:24
Speaker 1: you are, my friend? What what a time? What were
43:27
Speaker 1: what were we doing? I don't think they even had
43:30
Speaker 1: me two dollar bills, you know all. I still had
43:32
Speaker 1: my mattresses. Yeah. I was probably napping on him at
43:35
Speaker 1: the time, But I count those morse furniture for you
43:37
Speaker 1: than like maybe emergency currency, maybe, but it better be
43:41
Speaker 1: a real emergency. I like to think of it more
43:43
Speaker 1: as immersion currency because I just I just roll around
43:47
Speaker 1: in and man, yeah it feels good. And also, we
43:51
Speaker 1: want to be clear that despite dirty mattress jokes, NOL
43:55
Speaker 1: does washers currency. I don't want to scare anybody by
43:58
Speaker 1: letting you know just how many really gross statistics are
44:02
Speaker 1: out there about paper money saying I launder my money.
44:04
Speaker 1: I'm saying you literally launder your money in the best
44:06
Speaker 1: possible way. I will say this when I'm not sleeping
44:09
Speaker 1: on my stack of two dollar bill filled mattresses. I
44:12
Speaker 1: sleep on the Casper baby. I knew you weren't going
44:14
Speaker 1: to do it. Yes, Casper mattresses objectively great mattresses. So
44:24
Speaker 1: there's something that just occurred to me as we were
44:26
Speaker 1: talking about this protest. One of the reasons that two
44:30
Speaker 1: dollar bills might also be a great way of showing
44:34
Speaker 1: your community or your groups economic weight is because there's no, uh,
44:42
Speaker 1: there's no drawer space for two dollar bill in the
44:45
Speaker 1: typical cash register. Forgot that point entirely, Ben. It's very true.
44:48
Speaker 1: It's another reason that it's probably never taken off. It's
44:51
Speaker 1: clearly never been fully embraced by the economic community, by
44:56
Speaker 1: big cash register big registers. Yeah, and here's the thing too,
45:00
Speaker 1: and um, even today, you'll hear lots of stories about
45:03
Speaker 1: people just being very confused about this this currency, this
45:07
Speaker 1: this denomination. In fact, there's a story about a guy who, um,
45:12
Speaker 1: in his own kind of little protest, a little more
45:15
Speaker 1: of a mini protest. Best Buy apparently refused to install
45:19
Speaker 1: his son's car stereo for the gratis price they had
45:23
Speaker 1: promised him. And they said, okay, no, actually you have
45:25
Speaker 1: to pay for We're gonna call the cops if you
45:27
Speaker 1: don't come in. Um. This guy's name was Mike Billesta,
45:31
Speaker 1: and this was supported by the Baltimore Sun. The fifty
45:33
Speaker 1: seven year old Mike Billesta uh found himself in lock up. Um.
45:39
Speaker 1: He actually was handcuffed to a poll for three hours
45:42
Speaker 1: after he decided to give best by the old middle
45:47
Speaker 1: fingy and pay with all two's. Because the person he
45:51
Speaker 1: tried to pay first didn't recognize this, she went to
45:54
Speaker 1: get the manager. The manager said, these are counterfeit I've
45:56
Speaker 1: already called the police, and I believe he said the
45:58
Speaker 1: cop was He throws in that the cop was young
46:01
Speaker 1: as well. Sure, yeah, he was young, and they kept
46:04
Speaker 1: him handcuffed to this pole until they can get the
46:07
Speaker 1: damn Secret Service to show up. Can you imagine if
46:10
Speaker 1: you're that Secret Service agent, how annoyed you would be
46:13
Speaker 1: to be called out to a best Buy? It's crazy.
46:16
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people and they're probably in
46:18
Speaker 1: the lock up of the time they can get I
46:20
Speaker 1: think a lot of people are aware that the Secret
46:22
Speaker 1: Service is the organization that supervises counterfeiting. It's true because
46:27
Speaker 1: under federal law, anyone, anyone who intentionally uses counterfeit money
46:33
Speaker 1: can get up to twenty years in the clink and
46:36
Speaker 1: is also subject to a fine, a steep fine, I imagine, right,
46:39
Speaker 1: I would imagine so and this, uh, this has always
46:43
Speaker 1: been a fascinating thing to us. The the idea that
46:48
Speaker 1: the secret service of all groups has that specific task,
46:52
Speaker 1: because one would reasonably assume it would be the FBI.
46:56
Speaker 1: Or they can get involved too. They can't. They can
46:59
Speaker 1: get involved too, but specifically with counterfeiting. So that's like
47:02
Speaker 1: why in our earlier examples the FBI got called. That's right,
47:05
Speaker 1: but in this example, the Secret Service. I you know
47:08
Speaker 1: what we should We should write to some secret service folks,
47:11
Speaker 1: see if we can we can talk to them about this.
47:13
Speaker 1: Want to get in that system, man, I want to
47:15
Speaker 1: be on a list for in a letter writer, being
47:17
Speaker 1: some kind of agitator, being some kind of uh anachronistic
47:21
Speaker 1: BlooDye uses a pen. See that's exactly what happened to
47:25
Speaker 1: DENISEI and Neil, an eighth grader at the CHRISTA. Mccaulliffe
47:29
Speaker 1: Middle School outside of Houston. She attempted to pay for
47:32
Speaker 1: her school lunch with a two dollar bill. By the way,
47:35
Speaker 1: we haven't talked about how two dollar bills favorites of
47:37
Speaker 1: grandparents the world over. Oh yeah, is that true? We
47:41
Speaker 1: have We'll give you, give you a two dollar bill
47:42
Speaker 1: and your birthday card. You know, they think it's they
47:46
Speaker 1: think it's cute. That's sweet. Yeah, But anyway, this was
47:49
Speaker 1: not cute because her grand mama gave her this two
47:51
Speaker 1: dollar bill um and her grandmother's name was Sharon K. Joseph,
47:55
Speaker 1: and the cafeteria workers at the school did not believe
47:57
Speaker 1: that it was real. They said they had never seen
47:59
Speaker 1: two dollar bills and her life and she was sent
48:01
Speaker 1: to something called the police office because this particular school,
48:09
Speaker 1: this particular school district UM in Houston or outside of Houston,
48:12
Speaker 1: Fort Bend Independent School District has its own police force
48:16
Speaker 1: that's like a step above the police store Fort Bend
48:19
Speaker 1: I s d UM. And apparently the officer told her
48:23
Speaker 1: that she was going to be in big trouble for
48:25
Speaker 1: using this bill, which they believed to be counterfeit. Wow.
48:28
Speaker 1: So still a real stigma surrounding the two of the deuce.
48:31
Speaker 1: It is the tom the tom. You're right, it is
48:34
Speaker 1: still in circulation. It is not illegal to use it.
48:37
Speaker 1: It's not counterfeit. And when you think about it, most counterfeiters,
48:41
Speaker 1: who would be professional level counterfeiters, are not gonna mess
48:45
Speaker 1: with a small denomination. They want fifties, hundreds, stuff like that.
48:50
Speaker 1: They're not gonna mess with one that's gonna cause so
48:52
Speaker 1: many people to make a face, right, you want something
48:55
Speaker 1: that slides in unnoticed. There's something else I found that
48:59
Speaker 1: was pretty interesting. If you think people in the US
49:01
Speaker 1: are obsessed with the two dollar bill, then who boy
49:05
Speaker 1: are you in for an adventure in Ecuador? According to
49:08
Speaker 1: author Nina Poor Zucky, who wrote why are Ecuadorians obsessed
49:11
Speaker 1: with the two dollar bill? For p R I. In Ecuador,
49:16
Speaker 1: this bill is even more rare, and people believe that
49:21
Speaker 1: it is good luck. It is some of the best
49:23
Speaker 1: good luck. It functions like a four leaf clover. Ecuador
49:26
Speaker 1: has had the US dollars official currency since two thousand
49:31
Speaker 1: and The problem that they run into is a bank
49:34
Speaker 1: in Ecuador will order money from the federal reserve here
49:38
Speaker 1: in the States if they need five tens, fifties and
49:40
Speaker 1: two dollar bills are not a priority, So they're even
49:43
Speaker 1: less frequently found there than they are here, and that
49:47
Speaker 1: feedback loop happens again. People save them because they think
49:51
Speaker 1: they're good luck. But we also have these sort of
49:54
Speaker 1: um two dollar bill freedom fighters, don't we People like HEATHERN. McCabe,
49:58
Speaker 1: who runs a blog called to Buckaroo, and her whole
50:02
Speaker 1: life's mission is to dump two dollar bills back into circulation.
50:06
Speaker 1: And see people's reactions when she tries to spend them.
50:09
Speaker 1: There's an article about ms McCabe in the New York Times.
50:13
Speaker 1: UM and she was also in that documentary that we
50:14
Speaker 1: talked about, But this one is called two Dollar Bill
50:17
Speaker 1: is Oddity, but Some Love the Tender UM. It describes
50:21
Speaker 1: Heather McCabe was being on a one woman mission to
50:23
Speaker 1: revitalize the quirky Greenback through deliberate casual use. UM. It
50:28
Speaker 1: also cites this guy, Matthew zach Lad, who pours apparently
50:32
Speaker 1: close to seven thousand notes into circulation each year. UM
50:36
Speaker 1: And McCabe apparently has been turned away from businesses, told
50:41
Speaker 1: to pay with something else in different bars, and as
50:44
Speaker 1: constantly being asked by people that she encounters, can I
50:48
Speaker 1: buy this wallet full of two dollar bills that you
50:51
Speaker 1: have because they still think that it's cookie and wind
50:55
Speaker 1: rare and they have no idea that you can go
50:58
Speaker 1: down to the Fun Invention. Again, that's an acronym and
51:02
Speaker 1: it's not amazing the fun. I want to go to
51:04
Speaker 1: the Fun Convention and buy a wallet made out of
51:08
Speaker 1: two dollar bills. I think it was forty bucks. But
51:12
Speaker 1: there are other neat facts that we discovered about the
51:14
Speaker 1: two dollar bill. It's often used as a tracer by
51:17
Speaker 1: like mom and pop stores to track robberies. They keep
51:20
Speaker 1: the two dollar bill at the bottom of the drawer,
51:22
Speaker 1: they write the serial number down somewhere else, and then
51:25
Speaker 1: they just wait. Two dollar bills used to be handed
51:29
Speaker 1: out at Monticello, former home of President Jefferson's, because he
51:33
Speaker 1: got all the glory after they kicked all hamm me off.
51:37
Speaker 1: You have no control who lives, who dies, who tells
51:40
Speaker 1: your two dollar story. Steve Wozniak buys two dollar bills
51:45
Speaker 1: by the sheet from the Treasury Department and makes his
51:47
Speaker 1: own little coupon book essentially out of home so he
51:50
Speaker 1: can rip them out. Really, yeah, that's so weird. Is
51:53
Speaker 1: it just for grandpa purposes? Do he just wanted the
51:56
Speaker 1: ale to rip one out to give to his I
51:58
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe he hates leafing through things very interesting,
52:01
Speaker 1: but no, you know, I've got to tell you I
52:04
Speaker 1: had a bunch of stuff on another weird currency. But
52:06
Speaker 1: maybe we should save that for a different episode. Because
52:10
Speaker 1: this rabbit hole is going deep, deep, deep, A lot
52:13
Speaker 1: deeper than I thought it would, my friend, Yeah, a
52:16
Speaker 1: lot deeper we thought it would. Do you have a
52:18
Speaker 1: two dollar bill at your home currently, I do not.
52:21
Speaker 1: I I have one. Wait no, no, that's not true.
52:24
Speaker 1: I have three. Yeah, your flush, Well I planted them? What? No,
52:31
Speaker 1: I I have three. I think they actually, now that
52:34
Speaker 1: I think about it, I think they did come from
52:35
Speaker 1: an older relative. But there um, I think they might
52:40
Speaker 1: be pre seventy six. I can't remember. But beat as
52:44
Speaker 1: it may, we'd like to hear your two dollar bill
52:47
Speaker 1: stories because one thing that McCabe did in her blog
52:50
Speaker 1: is she started asking people to tell her a story
52:52
Speaker 1: about the two dollar bill, and she got some very
52:54
Speaker 1: interesting responses. It's a really cool blog. The one I'm
52:57
Speaker 1: looking at right now isn't a personal story as much
52:59
Speaker 1: as it is a new story. The headline is two
53:01
Speaker 1: dollar bill leads to heroin bust. In New Jersey, when
53:04
Speaker 1: a driver was pulled over for tossing a lit cigarette
53:06
Speaker 1: out of car window, the police officer reported seeing a
53:08
Speaker 1: rolled up two dollar bill with white residue on it.
53:11
Speaker 1: The driver and passenger were asked to step out of
53:13
Speaker 1: the vehicle. Prior to doing so, the driver made an
53:15
Speaker 1: attempt to hide the bill. According to the police, officer
53:18
Speaker 1: later located the bill in a cigarette pack containing Heroin.
53:22
Speaker 1: But what happened to the two dollar bill tongue? Yeah,
53:26
Speaker 1: so again we want to hear your stories or personal experiences,
53:30
Speaker 1: your memories. Did you grow up being told that two
53:33
Speaker 1: dollar bill was good luck or bad luck? If so,
53:36
Speaker 1: why do you think that the bill should continue? Because
53:39
Speaker 1: one thing I really uh, one thing I really wish
53:42
Speaker 1: we could have hit in this episode was the debate
53:45
Speaker 1: over whether or not to abolish the penny. I know
53:47
Speaker 1: you have very strong feelings about that, largely because you
53:49
Speaker 1: probably don't like touching pennies. Right, And we didn't even
53:53
Speaker 1: touch on the fact that Georgia Tech our hometown NERD
53:57
Speaker 1: football team. Yeah, you ever wondered about that? There you
54:00
Speaker 1: went there? Yeah, you were't on the football team though, No,
54:03
Speaker 1: not that I recall. So do they just let people
54:04
Speaker 1: go there just to be on the football team or
54:06
Speaker 1: is the football team just like full of genius engineers
54:08
Speaker 1: and diplomats? From what I remember, they have a pretty
54:12
Speaker 1: high bar academically. Sorry, I don't mean to be dismissive.
54:15
Speaker 1: I don't understand how this stuff works, but yeah they have.
54:17
Speaker 1: They have a rivalry with Clemson UM and they actually
54:20
Speaker 1: refused to play each other out of protest, and the
54:23
Speaker 1: alumni stamped two dollar bills with the Clemson Tiger paws
54:28
Speaker 1: and used them around Atlanta to illustrate the money that
54:33
Speaker 1: the Tiger fans were spending at these events. So once
54:36
Speaker 1: again the two dollar bill rears. It's uh quirky head
54:41
Speaker 1: and perhaps you can be part of a two dollar
54:43
Speaker 1: bill protest movement in the future. Have you been part
54:46
Speaker 1: of one? Yeah? And if you're planning one, what are
54:49
Speaker 1: you protesting? We might just join you. Let us know.
54:52
Speaker 1: You can write to us directly. We are ridiculous at
54:54
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. As always, a massive thanks
54:58
Speaker 1: to Casey Pegrom and Alex Williams who composed our track
55:02
Speaker 1: and not to mention a plus ace number one researcher
55:05
Speaker 1: Christopher Hasiotis for holding our hands down this rabbit hole
55:10
Speaker 1: deep dive, shallow dive, medium dive. I thought it was
55:14
Speaker 1: pretty good dive. You know, I I rate us more
55:16
Speaker 1: on form, so I thought it was a good form.
55:18
Speaker 1: I made a tiny splash, right, Oh man, how come
55:23
Speaker 1: the one does a cannonball at the Olympics. I was
55:25
Speaker 1: wondering that when I was a kid. But cannonballs aside.
55:28
Speaker 1: Stay tuned for our next episode. When we will ask
55:31
Speaker 1: how related are US presidents in terms of familial I
55:36
Speaker 1: thought I was gonna say they're their presidents. They're all
55:38
Speaker 1: president presidents. You know you can try, but name one
55:41
Speaker 1: US president who was not president? All right, that's tough.
55:44
Speaker 1: It's a tough one, not impossible. But no, I see
55:47
Speaker 1: where you're going with this, Ben, and that does sound
55:49
Speaker 1: like a good time. So stay tuned right to us.
55:52
Speaker 1: Will always love to hear from you. You can also
55:54
Speaker 1: join our community on Facebook. We are Ridiculous Historians. That's
55:59
Speaker 1: where you can see Nolan, Casey and I are dropping
56:02
Speaker 1: by with the odd childhood photo maybe soon the karaoke eclips,
56:06
Speaker 1: and most importantly, hearing your suggestions for future topics. That
56:10
Speaker 1: sounds good to me, My friend Casey, can we go
56:13
Speaker 1: out on the cash registered Ram