Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. There are plenty of places on Earth where
Speaker 1: the word hot doesn't go far enough to describe the temperature.
Speaker 1: Death Valley National Park in California, for example, can reach
Speaker 1: more than one degrees fahrenheit on summer days. The park
Speaker 1: advises visitors not to hike after ten am for fear
Speaker 1: of heat related illnesses. To Billy, Tunisia hit a record
Speaker 1: setting one degrees in July of nineteen thirty one, making
Speaker 1: it one of the hottest locations on the planet. And
Speaker 1: then there's kuber Petty. Kuber Petty is a small town
Speaker 1: in southern Australia. It's home to several aboriginal groups, including
Speaker 1: the Arabana and the Cocata. However, it got its name
Speaker 1: due to the activities of the miners who took over
Speaker 1: the area there in the early twenty century. Kuber Petty
Speaker 1: you see is derived from the Cocafa language and translates
Speaker 1: to white man's holes. Around nineteen fifteen, a man had
Speaker 1: come to cuber Petty to prospect for gold. However, it
Speaker 1: was his teenage son who found something precious one day,
Speaker 1: and what he discovered changed everything. A boy had stumbled
Speaker 1: upon Opal, a perlscent stone that had been coveted by
Speaker 1: ancient cultures for thousands of years. Once World War One ended,
Speaker 1: soldiers returning home ventured out into the Australian desert to
Speaker 1: try their hand at Opal mining. Europeans soon followed suit,
Speaker 1: and what had started with a bit of dumb luck
Speaker 1: turned into a full fledged industry that transformed the landscape.
Speaker 1: Kuber Petty is known today as the Opal capital of
Speaker 1: the world, and it has over two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand mine shafts to prove it. There are signs everywhere
Speaker 1: warning miners and visitors alike to watch their steps, don't
Speaker 1: walk backwards, and certainly don't run, not unless they want
Speaker 1: to plummet several hundred feet to their depths. With so
Speaker 1: many people flocking to the region to hunt for Opal,
Speaker 1: it was only natural for them to also make their
Speaker 1: homes there, and once the homes were built, residents needed
Speaker 1: more to live, like food and recreational activities. Soon enough,
Speaker 1: a whole town sprouted up. Bars, grocery stores, a hair salon, bookstore,
Speaker 1: and even three separate churches were built to accommodate the
Speaker 1: growing population. The hotels they're even had opals embedded in
Speaker 1: their walls as reminders of what made the town so famous.
Speaker 1: Of course, none of the food in the grocery store
Speaker 1: was grown locally. The area was incapable of sustaining life.
Speaker 1: In fact, the first tree ever planted in town wasn't
Speaker 1: planted at all. It was made from scrap iron and
Speaker 1: someone had welded together. One reason for a lack of
Speaker 1: flora was due to the extreme heat, which often reached
Speaker 1: into the triple digits even in the shade. The other
Speaker 1: reason the lack of rain. Given such extreme conditions, one
Speaker 1: must wonder how miners and their families were able to
Speaker 1: survive at all. Well, they didn't build their homes, you see,
Speaker 1: nor their public buildings out in the open. At least,
Speaker 1: they went underground. Half of the town's sevent hundred residents
Speaker 1: lived in homes that were dug into hillsides with the
Speaker 1: same tools used to mind. For opal they were called dugouts,
Speaker 1: and because they resided below ground, they almost never got
Speaker 1: hotter than seventy five degrees fahrenheit. Built in temperature regulation
Speaker 1: also meant air conditioning wasn't necessary. These weren't one or
Speaker 1: two room studio apartments either. The homes included full kitchens,
Speaker 1: living areas, bedrooms, and bathrooms. Many were outfitted with tile
Speaker 1: floors and carpeting. Families hung pictures on the walls and
Speaker 1: placed coffee tables in their living room. Starting in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, modern amenities like landline telephones made their way
Speaker 1: to Cooper Petty Dwellings. TV service arrived in nineteen eighty,
Speaker 1: and cell phones became usable there in the nineties. Today,
Speaker 1: the only distinction between the dugouts above ground counterpart is
Speaker 1: the temperature difference, well that in the stone walls. All
Speaker 1: underground buildings there must adhere to local regulations and be
Speaker 1: equipped with proper ventilation, emergency lighting, and a sturdy ceiling
Speaker 1: that's at least two point five meters thick. The town
Speaker 1: may have started out as a vast expanse of open space,
Speaker 1: but over the last hundred years it's become a bustling metropolis.
Speaker 1: Tourists can visit the Opal Capital of the World right
Speaker 1: under the bright Australian sun before heading underground to cool off.
Speaker 1: As the old saying goes, if you can't stand the heat,
Speaker 1: get out of the kitchen. Well, whoever said that probably
Speaker 1: didn't know that in the Opal Capital of the World,
Speaker 1: the kitchen maybe the coolest place to go. They say
Speaker 1: imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but that may
Speaker 1: be true for actors and musicians, but I doubt Immanuel
Speaker 1: Ninger's imitations were considered equally as flattering. Emmanuel was born
Speaker 1: around eighteen forty six in Germany. Not much as known
Speaker 1: about his childhood, but it's probably safe to say that
Speaker 1: he took an early interest in art. When he was
Speaker 1: thirty five years old, though he moved to Hoboken, New
Speaker 1: Jersey with his wife and two thousand dollars to their name.
Speaker 1: He found work painting signs, something he had developed quite
Speaker 1: a skillful, and soon bought a farm in the small
Speaker 1: town of Westfield, New Jersey. Emmanuel's life was on a
Speaker 1: path toward good fortune, not necessarily as a sign painter,
Speaker 1: but as a good husband and a neighbor. Unfortunately, his
Speaker 1: fortune ran short, his two thousand dollars only got him
Speaker 1: so far, and painting signs wasn't the road to riches
Speaker 1: he had hoped for, so he decided it to use
Speaker 1: his artistic talents in another way. Emmanuel reached out to
Speaker 1: a paper manufacturer called Crane and Company. He bought some
Speaker 1: of the finest paper they made. Crane and Company were
Speaker 1: renowned for two reasons. One, they sold high quality stationary
Speaker 1: and to their biggest client happened to be the United
Speaker 1: States government. In two, all the currency in America was
Speaker 1: printed on Crane and Company paper. Emmanuel Ninger could have
Speaker 1: used his skill to sketch portraits, or paint murals, or
Speaker 1: make anything really. Instead, he chose to make money, like
Speaker 1: literally make money. This, of course, was before the days
Speaker 1: of photocopiers. When it came to currency, this artist did
Speaker 1: things the hard way. He copied the bills by hand.
Speaker 1: Is he Emmanuel had a bit of an ego. He
Speaker 1: was very confident in his work and didn't just believe
Speaker 1: his notes to be museum worthy. He thought that they
Speaker 1: were better than the money being mass produced by the governments,
Speaker 1: and therefore worth more than the denominations printed on them.
Speaker 1: Using the paper that he bought from Crane and Company.
Speaker 1: Emmanuel cut it down to size, matching it to the
Speaker 1: size of a bill he was copying. He then took
Speaker 1: the empty sheets and soaked it in coffee to give
Speaker 1: it an aged look. With a paper still wet and pliable,
Speaker 1: he then dropped it on top of the real bill
Speaker 1: and lined up the edges before putting both pieces of
Speaker 1: paper on a pane of glass. The coffee stained bond
Speaker 1: was practically transparent, giving a manual a perfect look at
Speaker 1: the currency underneath. Pencil in hand, he traced the image
Speaker 1: onto the blank sheet. Once the coffee had dried, he
Speaker 1: switched to pen and ink to finish the drawing. What
Speaker 1: he had created was a work of art people would
Speaker 1: carry around in their pockets. Now. The bills weren't perfect.
Speaker 1: There were some words and phrases on real American currency
Speaker 1: which he didn't transcribe onto his own versions, but nobody
Speaker 1: looked that closely. If they were carrying one of his bills,
Speaker 1: they then believed that they were carrying something that had
Speaker 1: come directly from Washington, d c. Emmanuel is believed to
Speaker 1: have drawn somewhere in the realm of a few hundred
Speaker 1: dollars worth of bills per month, more than enough to
Speaker 1: live on. He became so successful he was able to
Speaker 1: move off the farm in Westfield to a newer, larger
Speaker 1: farm in Flagtown, New Jersey. He kept up his operation
Speaker 1: for over a decade and even had it reviewed favorably
Speaker 1: in the New York Times. Yet he couldn't stop using
Speaker 1: the bills out in public, probably because he felt the
Speaker 1: people accepting them were getting a better deal than they realized.
Speaker 1: After all, they now owned true art. One night in
Speaker 1: March of eight, Immanuel went out to buy beer and
Speaker 1: other spirits. He asked the bar keep to change out
Speaker 1: a fifty dollar bill. The man agreed and gave himmanual
Speaker 1: forty dollars in notes and ten dollars worth of silver.
Speaker 1: The artist thanked him and left with his bottles in tow.
Speaker 1: As the bar keep picked up the bill, he noticed
Speaker 1: how wet it was and the ink on one side
Speaker 1: was running. Realizing that he had been duped, he called
Speaker 1: on his assistant to chase after emmanual and get his
Speaker 1: money back. The assistant headed into the streets and flagged
Speaker 1: the police officer down to help. Together, they cornered a
Speaker 1: manual at the Fairy Landing waiting to board a boat home,
Speaker 1: he confessed to everything. Stories about Emmanuel were published in
Speaker 1: all the New York newspapers, though they referred to him
Speaker 1: as Jim the Penman, a catchy name that endeared him
Speaker 1: to the public. He faced a sentence of fifteen years
Speaker 1: for counterfeiting, but the judge only gave him six. Emmanuel
Speaker 1: was forced to pay a fine of one dollar. After
Speaker 1: serving about four years, he was released and he returned
Speaker 1: to his wife. Emmanuel Neinger learned a very valuable lesson
Speaker 1: in prison. It doesn't matter how hard you try, some
Speaker 1: compulsions can't be ignored. After some time at home, he
Speaker 1: felt the urge to create once again and went right
Speaker 1: back to making fake money by hand. He turned his attention,
Speaker 1: this time to British pound notes, which were larger than
Speaker 1: American currency and mostly colored in black and white. Despite
Speaker 1: going back to his old ways, Emmanuel was never caught
Speaker 1: again during the remainder of his life, and you could
Speaker 1: take that fact straight to the bank. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
Speaker 1: created by me, Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.