Saturday Odds and Ends

It seems like this weekend may be devoid of the usual fireworks that have been the norm for about a month. I mean the Yahoo Finance lead story was about President Bush promises the country everything will be OK, eventually. Hard to argue with that. Eventually the Moon will spin away from Earth, as it moves away 30 millimeters or so a year. Eventually is a relative term.

Question About Newspapers
I do get a physical newspaper and have not for about 5 years. I remember when I was younger that my Mom was always waiting to get the paper in the evening and especially on Sunday. I was wondering how many of the readers here get an actual paper? Or do you rely on the Web alone to read news items? Just curious, so leave your response in the comments section.

Interesting Tidbit
You can learn something new every day! Today I ran across the book "Moby Dick" by Herman Melville. I Wiki'd the book and I was amazed that an actual ship was sunk by an angry sperm whale. This event inspired Melville to write the story.

The ship that was rammed by the whale was called the Essex and it was based out of Nantucket. If you have some time you should read about the entire episode as it entails shipwreck, remote island life, cannibalism, and other drama. Who knew?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_(whaleship)

Cool Old Money Site
I was searching around trying to find out some information on a weird $10 dollar bill my wife had last week. A clerk at a gas station gave as change to my a wife a 1934 Ten Dollar Bill! The bill was very different than any money I had ever seen. It turns out the bill is of some value (not alot, do not get excited!) so it was a neat find.

During my research I came across a totally awesome site that specializes in old money, banknotes, bonds, and other financial paper from all across the US over time. I seriously spend hours looking at all kinds of things on this site. I am going to buy a few things for myself when I figure out what I want the most. You can see what the guy is selling here:

http://www.donckelly.com/forsale.html

Some examples of things I find very cool:

I know it is hard to believe, but the US money supply was once backed up by solid gold! Amazing. There were things called Gold Certificates that you could actually redeem for gold. The bills have, of course, gold colored accents. The bills are very nice (clicking on picture will give you a bigger version):
Front Side


Backside:


How about Confederate money from the Civil War?:


The site even has regional money printed by local banks. You can search out old bank notes from your hometown perhaps. Here is an old bill from 1882 issued by the bank of Gloucester here in Massachusetts:


I am in no way associated with that site, I just came across it yesterday so my mention of it here is out of my own interest, not an endorsement! I really do like the old money though.

That is about it. Quiet Saturday night and I had some time to post.

Have a good night.