Word: currens
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Yankee collectors have driven up the price of the 72-odd Confederate curren cies issued between 1861 and 1864. A $50 note issued in Alabama in 1861 can fetch up to $1,000, and a $5 bill from Richmond may bring up to $900. Particularly in demand are $100 notes depicting slaves hoeing cotton. Proving that more than one peanut farmer knows how to exploit his roots, a goober grower from Virginia enticed a collector into shelling out $10,000 for an 1861 Virginia $500 note...
Where did it all begin? No one seems quite sure, but Ken Fairchild of New York City's radio station WMCA has a theory. In 1964, he recalls, WMCA created a Smilie similar to the curren version as part of a promotion campaign for the Good Guys, the station's disk-jockey team at the time. "Ours had a few wisps of hair on the top," he recalls, "and I think it was cuter." WMCA handed out thousands of Good Guy sweatshirts during the 1964-66 period and a few still can be seen around the city today...