FOOLS AMONGST THE PENNY HUNTERS (1895)
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The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations.
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April Fool’s jokes have a long and colorful tradition of the instigation of harmless pranks on hapless “fools.” They have often been played with great success on their unsuspecting targets at least since the 16th century.
In 1895, one April Fool’s joke brought about not only the public mockery of one Brooklyn businessman – but also a great loss of some “small change.”
THERE’S GOLD IN THEM THAR PENNIES!
On April Fool’s Day in 1895, a Bath Beach business man, John Brodie of Bay Seventeenth street let his greed get the best of him. On that fateful day a “stranger entered Brodie’s collecting agency office” and “let out the secret that all the 1892 cents would be recalled and that their value had suddenly jumped to 8 cents each.”
The reason, it was averred, was that “by mistake some gold had become mixed up in the copper.”
Brodie saw a chance to make a great profit, but only if he acted swiftly and quietly. He, thus, “sent his office boy around to the different banks and secured fully $50 worth of coppers. Not satisfied with this he visited various stores at Bath Beach and gathered in all the pennies he could.”
But Brodie could not keep the secret of the path to quick riches for long. Somehow that secret got out and others wanted in on the windfall.
FRETTING ABOUT THEIR WICKED SCHEMES
“Ex-Assemblyman Charles Conrady of Bay Sixteenth street and Bookmaker Charley Dimond of Bensonhurst learned what Brodie was about and set out on their own hook to secure the coppers.”
For a period, the three men went about on their ruthless hunt for the coppers in an attempt to corner the penny market – or at least the Bath Beach copper market.
“Butchers, bakers, grocers, and saloon keepers were visited. As a result the most mysterious reports were circulated concerning the penny hunters.”
To this point, though, Brodie, Conrady, and Dimond had only exchanged dollars for pennies and had lost little but their time and efforts.
That, however, was about to change for Brodie.
THE DAY BEFORE THE “CRASH”
Among the store keepers visited by Brodie was one Moloughney of Bath Avenue. Wise to the designs of Brodie’s penny hunt, he would not part with his small change until Brodie “offered to give him 5 cents for every 1892 cent in the place.” Brodie, knowing a fair deal when he saw one, jumped at the offer and paid $1 for $5 worth of coppers.
The following day, however, after Brodie had realized the April Fool’s joke played at his expense, he plotted to get his money back, returning first to Moloughney’s store and telling the storekeeper that he no longer wanted the pennies. Moloughney, however, refused to give Brodie his money back.
Thus, it did not dawn upon Brodie, Conrady or Dimond until the 6th of April that year that they had been victims of a huge joke.
In the meantime they had collected in the range of “$200 or $300 between them.”
“They are now,” one newspaper article noted, “distributing the pennies as fast as they can.”
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