You know you’re a diehard collector when… well, when you find a way to fork over $2.3 million for an item that originally went for a grand. According to a Texas auction gallery, an anonymous art collector recently paid more than $2 million for a $1,000 bill printed in 1890.
“This $1,000 bill is one of only two known of its type; the other surviving example is in the museum at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco,” the president of Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries told news reporters.
The rare item also comes with a sweet name. According to experts, that type of bank note is known to collectors as a “Grand Watermelon” because the green-striped zeros in the denomination “1,000” printed on the back of the bill look like the fruit.
Auctioneers say what makes the item so prized is that only two Grand Watermelon examples are known with red-color Treasury Department seals printed on the front; the half-dozen other surviving Grand Watermelon notes have brown seals.
The $2,255,000 price will go down in the history books as the most money ever paid for a bank note. The previous record was $2.1 million.
Now here’s a story about guy who could really use that money—perhaps, to buy a clue.
According to police in West Virginia, a man missing a tire and some common sense tried to drive his tattered Oldsmobile to a local auto parts store—on three tires. He didn’t make it far.
Officers say they received calls from numerous motorists saying that the car’s front fender was off and debris was falling from the car. As police caught up with the Oldsmobile, it swerved sideways, apparently because it was riding on three tires and a rim.
Believe it or not the man and the car made it to the auto parts store unharmed. That’s where police say they arrested the driver and charged him with driving under the influence after he failed field sobriety tests.
Hard to believe, but oh, so true.
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