1930's currency worth $400,000 found in an old home

[jo67sh]

go check out this link

maybe i should move out of my condo and shop around for a rundown old home for hidden treasures..

http://news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/400...=abc&date=True

[Holden West]

The article said some of the bills dated back to the 1930s. I ran that $400,000 figure through the Bank of Canada's online inflation calculator assuming that the average age of the bills was around 1950. The resulting number was around $3.7 million. In other words that crazy old lady stashed the equivalent of $2-4 million in today's money in the walls of that store. The family must be furious--think of the college educations that could have been bought for generations of the family's children. The old lady must have hated her family--or maybe she and her husband were just plain nuts.

I was hoping someone would post photos of the mysterious Lido store to Flickr and my prayers have been answered. Thank you clarish!

[SpongeG]

crazy

my friends grandma died last year and for months afterwards they were finding money stashed all over the place - not a huge amount but little amounts of it in books, boxes, furniture etc.

[mr.x]

^ not necessarily crazy. I mean, the earliest of those bills were from the 1930s.....and we all know what happened then: the Great Depression. It wasn't so bad up here in Canada, compared to the states, but many didn't trust the banks from that point on.

My house was built in the 1940's....maybe i'll hit rich if i start tearing the house apart ....or not.

[quobobo]

Originally Posted by Holden West

The old lady must have hated her family--or maybe she and her husband were just plain nuts.

I think anyone who would forego that much interest is just plain nuts - even if she hated her family I can't understand missing out on that much money for herself! Unless she put at least some money elsewhere, I don't think that even depression-era bank worries could justify that.

Even with the depression-era worries, earning zero return seems like a pretty raw deal compared to diversified investments... one would think this would have started to become apparent in the 1950's or 60's at least.

[Distill3d]

i'm sure Revenue Canada would have a field day with this if those people were still alive...

[Holden West]

She could have put it in freakin' Canada Savings Bonds if she was overly cautious. But the article says she got a lot of the money from betting on horses so I doubt she and her husband were that financially conservative!

If that store had caught fire at any time everything would have been lost.

Vancouver coin dealer Brian Grant Duff called The Lido discovery an "incredible find," adding that the recovered money could be worth as much as double its face value depending on the condition of the notes.

http://www.evalu8.org/staticpage?pag...w&siteid=11647

[G-Slice]

How could you possibly sell 400,000 in 1930s currency for anywhere close to double its face value? Sure, individual notes from then might fetch that much, but try and offload 400,000 at once and it should pretty much destroy the collector's value that ANY 1930s currency might have...

[Hillbillary]

Vancouver coin dealer Brian Grant Duff called The Lido discovery an "incredible find," adding that the recovered money could] be worth as much as double its face value depending on the condition of the notes.

As a papermoney collector, I can tell you that the notes could be worth significantly more than double. here's a few prices for 1935 and 1937 Bank of Canada issues (most likely the 1930's currency their talking about) with common signature combo's in various grades (my book is a couple of years out of date,mind you):

1935 $1.00 VG (Very Good) = $35.00, VF (Very Fine) = $100.00, UNC (Uncirculated) = $450.00!

1935 $5.00 VG = $80.00, VF = $300.00, UNC = $1900.00!

1935 $20.00 VG = $375.00, VF = $1500.00, UNC = $7500.00!

1935 $100.00 VG = $750.00, VF = $4000.00, UNC = $6000.00!

1937 $1.00 VG = $8.00, VF = $12.00, UNC = $55.00

1937 $5.00 VG = $15.00, VF = $25.00, UNC = $150.00

1937 $20.00 VG = $25.00, VF = $30.00, UNC = $160.00

1937 $100.00 VG = $125.00, VF = $170.00, UNC = $700.00

I would imagine most of the notes would probably average VF or so, just guessing. Common notes in lower grades (G, VG, Fine) would be difficult to unload though.

It should also be noted that during the 30's and 40's (until 1943), Charter Banks (eg. Canadian Bank of Commerce, Royal Bank of Canada, the Dominion Bank (later amalgamated with the Bank of Toronto)) issued their own currency that circulated along side Bank of Canada issues. These notes are very collectable these days and would have a value considerablely higher that those above. Still considering compounding interest, unless there any scarce signature combo or issues, a bank account or other investment instrument would have been the way to go.