"Save your Confederate money, the South will rise again!"
Indeed, South Carolina is selling money to make money.
State officials have quietly picked through boxes of Civil War state currency and auctioned it on eBay, providing the state archives with an influx of cash amid tight budgets.
About 40 boxes of the currency were supposed to be destroyed more than a century ago, but some of the bills were tucked away in the Statehouse basement and eventually moved to the state archives. They sat there largely undisturbed for four decades and only recently did officials realize they could sell the cash.
The archives have made about $200,000 selling hundreds of the bills over the past couple of years.
You can read more in an Associated Press article at http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i51uPvvJrXD-xsGn7V17V8bSIDBAD98K26K80.
Who says confederate money isn't worth the paper it's printed on?
Posted by: Charles Lockwood | June 05, 2009 at 07:03 AM
Gee! After reading this, I've just checked.
I've got $5 bill from "The State of Texas" dated Oct 1, 1862 - a Two dollar bill from the Bank of Chattanooga from the State of Tennessee dated Jan 4, 1873- a $500 bill from "The Confederate States of America, dated Richmond Feb 17, 1861, plus few others.
I just assumed these were worthless. I'm going to have to go check further.
Genealogy can sure lead you down many paths, can't it?
Posted by: Norm Bodeau | June 05, 2009 at 01:59 PM
How clever of South Carolina! Amidst budget problems across the nation, it will take creativity like this to pull us through.
Posted by: Meri | June 05, 2009 at 02:33 PM
This is funny in so many ways. And creative. What a great way to raise funds. Talk about "selling refrigerators in the Arctic"!
Barb Johnson
Posted by: Barbara Johnson | June 05, 2009 at 09:37 PM