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#601 – World Series Final Table #14 – Funny Money
When they got down to six-handed, Jack Effel made a flourish of announcing “something was coming” for the players. Several men brought pairs of alumimum suitcases to a table next to where they were playing. It was The Money. It seemed kind of early and kind of corny, but there it was, bundles and bundles and bundles of hundred dollar bills, the prize money the final six were trying to win.
Everyone takes for granted that they aren’t using real money, but I know how you can tell.
If you look at the pictures of the money – or any large, showy pile in a public place [Doesn't the Supreme Court do this too?] – notice that you see only one side of the bills. If the bills are so stacked with so much care and uniformity, why is the bottom bill of every bundle somehow face down, leaving the face showing on both ends of every bundle?
If you’re creating show money, compared with actually counterfeiting with the attempt to pass the bills off, you have to stamp something on one side making it clear that the money is just for show. That way, you can make it as real as you want and no one has to worry that someone will use this money for real. The backs of these bills all have some stamp on them that would make it so clear they aren’t real that it would spoil the illusion.
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