Monday, May 14, 2018

Manic Monday Bonus--In Those Days, Nickels Had Pictures Of Bumblebees On Them!

On Earth-2, Superman was the actual star of The Adventures Of Superman radio show. He actually went to the radio studio and played the role of Superman himself--live!! (More on that later this morning)

There was just one problem--that meant crooks knew where he was going to be at that time everyday! They could run free with crime!!

And Boss Biggens has planned a master heist:


So what is this grand slam plan?


Wait...nickels?!?

So...how does one actually move 3,636 pounds of nickels from the crime scene?

OK, clever enough. Especially since the gullible Metropolis cops are actually helping!

Well, Superman finds a way to thwart the getaway, and we get an actual count on the coins:

"Jitney" is "archaic slang" for nickels, if you didn't know. We should try to get that word up and working again!

Ha--take that, Flash!!

Granted, $20,000 was a fair haul in 1946. But here's my question. If you're a gang of thieves, what, exactly, do you do with 415,553 nickels?

Seriously, there was no Coinstar at the local grocery store. And after such a heist, surely the banks would be on the alert for anyone trying to cash in a large amount of jitneys, and immediately call the police. Especially if someone showed up with 10,388 nickel rolls.

Do you pay your henchmen in nickels? Is there a sudden surge of goombas buying cars and fur coats with 5-cent pieces?

In 1946, how did crooks launder $20, 777.65 worth of nickels?

And, seriously, with Superman "guaranteed" to be out of the way, this is the best crime you could come up with?!?

From Superman #39 (1946)

1 comment:

Smurfswacker said...

Nickels were used in juke boxes, vending machines, and (where legal) slot machines. They could take the nickels to a bank a chunk at a time, pretending they were from a legitimate source. Still it's an awful lot of work.