Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: We've all been there. Fingers covered in paper cuts, pieces
Speaker 1: of Scotch tape, stuck along the edge of a coffee table,
Speaker 1: a single pair of scissors that keeps getting lost. For me,
Speaker 1: every Christmas Eve turns into a mad dash to finish
Speaker 1: wrapping presents, which got me thinking, how did this tradition
Speaker 1: even begin? Well, it turns out the practice of wrapping
Speaker 1: gifts can be traced all the way back to the
Speaker 1: first century CE. It began in Korea with a special
Speaker 1: type of decorative, reusable wrapping cloth called a bajogi. A
Speaker 1: similar practice arose in Japan during the sixteen hundreds. By
Speaker 1: the Victorian era, gift wrapping had spread to Great Britain,
Speaker 1: although it was mainly a luxury for the upper classes,
Speaker 1: and this was when wrapping paper started to look kind
Speaker 1: of similar to what we use today. Instead of reusable cloth.
Speaker 1: They covered gifts in thick patterned paper, and they usually
Speaker 1: added some ribbon or lace for that extra special pop.
Speaker 1: For those who couldn't afford this kind of frivolity, tissue
Speaker 1: paper was a less pricey alternative. It was common to
Speaker 1: see gifts shrouded in festive colors like red, green, or white,
Speaker 1: and some stores wrap gift items themselves as a courtesy.
Speaker 1: But not everyone was in favor of this colorful practice.
Speaker 1: The nineteen eleven edition of Hardware Dealers magazine featured the
Speaker 1: following note, and I quote, whatever your business, leave the
Speaker 1: freak wrapping papers to the other fellow, which is pretty harsh.
Speaker 1: I mean, what did the freak paper ever do to him?
Speaker 1: In any case, this crotchety advice was largely ignored. By
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, the tissue paper fad had made its
Speaker 1: way across the Pond, and American stores often sold out
Speaker 1: of the product around the holidays. In fact, it's exactly
Speaker 1: what happened to Jc and Raleigh Hall, two brothers who
Speaker 1: ran a stationary store in Kansas City, Missouri, in nineteen seventeen.
Speaker 1: Their gift wrapping shelves ran empty. Not wanting to upset
Speaker 1: their customers or miss out on valuable holiday sales. JC
Speaker 1: and Raleigh went to the back of the store and
Speaker 1: looked for something that could replace the tissue paper. They
Speaker 1: found some thin, decorative sheets that they had ordered from France.
Speaker 1: They normally used it for lining envelopes, but with no
Speaker 1: other options, the brothers put the French paper out for
Speaker 1: sale at ten cents a sheet. The whole stack sold
Speaker 1: out within a single day, so the next year, JC
Speaker 1: and Raleigh ordered more French paper, this time specifically marketing
Speaker 1: it for wrapping gifts. Again, it sold out to almost immediately.
Speaker 1: In nineteen nineteen, after two years of paper selling success,
Speaker 1: the brothers started designing and producing their own decorative wrapping paper.
Speaker 1: This product was so successful that has sparked an entirely
Speaker 1: new industry wrapping paper as we know it was born.
Speaker 1: These days, it's estimated that over eight thousand tons of
Speaker 1: wrapping paper are used each Christmas season. It's a sixteen
Speaker 1: point two billion dollar industry. In the UK alone, people
Speaker 1: throw away over two hundred and twenty five thousand miles
Speaker 1: of paper during the holidays. That's enough to wrap around
Speaker 1: the globe nine times. To say it's wasteful would be
Speaker 1: an understatement. Maybe that's why the guy who wrote into
Speaker 1: Hardware Dealers Magazine was so upset. In my opinion, it
Speaker 1: might be time to take a page out of the
Speaker 1: ancient Korean book and think about switching to a reusable
Speaker 1: cloth wrap like the bajogi. In fact, my family's been
Speaker 1: doing that for a few years now, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like people are willing to give up on wrapping
Speaker 1: paper anytime soon. Christmas just wouldn't be the same without
Speaker 1: those paper cuts, the scotch tape, and the missing scissors,
Speaker 1: and of course the feeling of tearing into a present
Speaker 1: to see what's hidden inside. And we have jac and
Speaker 1: Raleigh Hall to thank for making wrapping paper what it
Speaker 1: is today. Indeed, the brothers created something of a paper
Speaker 1: based dynasty, selling everything from wrapping paper to stationary to
Speaker 1: greeting cards. Their brand even expanded into television and film,
Speaker 1: becoming known for producing holiday movies. And you've probably heard
Speaker 1: of the name of j. C. And Raleigh's stationary store,
Speaker 1: it's called Hallmark. A couple of Christmases ago, a strange
Speaker 1: story made the headlines in Utah. A person had gone
Speaker 1: into a grocery store, paid in cash and received some change,
Speaker 1: and then they stuck the money in their wallet without
Speaker 1: much thought. But later, when they looked at the one
Speaker 1: dollar bill they'd received from the cashier, they were shocked
Speaker 1: to see the face staring back at them. It wasn't
Speaker 1: the regular green tinted George Washington. Instead, in the center
Speaker 1: of the bill there was a portrait of none other
Speaker 1: than jolly old Saint Nick staring at Santa Claus. The
Speaker 1: person was baffled. They thought maybe it was some kind
Speaker 1: of holiday joke, but then they started to worry that
Speaker 1: they'd been given a counterfeit bill. Unsure what else to do,
Speaker 1: they took a picture of the dollar and sent it
Speaker 1: to the Fox news station in Salt Lake City. It
Speaker 1: turns out this person wasn't the only one who had
Speaker 1: stumbled upon some curious cash. The news station published an
Speaker 1: article letting people know that the festive funds were indeed
Speaker 1: legal us tender. That image of Chris Kringle was just
Speaker 1: a sticker placed there by a charity that was fittingly
Speaker 1: called Santa's Dollars. Each year, Santa's Dollars sells the merry
Speaker 1: money at a slight markup, donating the profits to a
Speaker 1: long list of good causes, and so that is how
Speaker 1: a bunch of weird bucks ended up in Salt Lake
Speaker 1: City supermarkets. But considering that we're only one minute into
Speaker 1: this story, you probably know that this is part of
Speaker 1: a much longer and much weirder history of American currency.
Speaker 1: You see, the standardized US dollars of today were designed
Speaker 1: and instituted in the early eighteen sixties. Prior to that,
Speaker 1: every single state could make their own money. There were
Speaker 1: New York dollars, Massachusetts dollars, Connecticut dollars, and so on
Speaker 1: and so forth. As you probably imagine, this created a
Speaker 1: lot of confusion when it came to conducting business across
Speaker 1: state lines. But it gets even worse. Beyond having different
Speaker 1: currencies in each state. Even individual banks could design and
Speaker 1: print their own dollars. Just imagine trying to keep your
Speaker 1: Bank of America ones separated from your Chase Bank twenties.
Speaker 1: You would need like three times as many compartments in
Speaker 1: your wallet. And on top of all of this, the
Speaker 1: gold Standard, which lasted until nineteen seventy one, made the
Speaker 1: situation even more complicated. The gold standard is a system
Speaker 1: in which the value of paper currency is directly connected
Speaker 1: to gold. For example, if a bank had a million
Speaker 1: dollars worth of gold, they could print a million dollar
Speaker 1: bills with the promise that at any time a customer
Speaker 1: could exchange their money for the metal. Basically, because gold
Speaker 1: is a precious metal, it was perceived to have inherent value.
Speaker 1: By contrast, money, which is literally just dyed paper, only
Speaker 1: had value if it was backed by gold. That meant
Speaker 1: that banks had an incentive to keep as much gold
Speaker 1: on hand as possible while convincing customers to use the
Speaker 1: paper money instead. But as you'd imagine, to make people
Speaker 1: want dollars instead of gold, banks had to get very creative.
Speaker 1: Take the Saint Nicholas Bank of New York City for example.
Speaker 1: In the early eighteen hundreds, the institution capitalized on its
Speaker 1: name by printing a whole series of holiday themed bills.
Speaker 1: These weren't decorated by stickers like the Santa dollars of today.
Speaker 1: They literally had images of Santa Claus, his sleigh, and
Speaker 1: his reindeer woven into the fabric. The idea was to
Speaker 1: make paper money fun and collectible so people would willingly
Speaker 1: keep it over gold, and it worked, or at least
Speaker 1: the idea caught on later on in the eighteen fifties,
Speaker 1: the Howard Banking Company released a so called center Closs
Speaker 1: bill featuring pictures of the Dutch version of Santa, and
Speaker 1: more banks followed suit. All In all, twenty one financial
Speaker 1: institutions in eight different states jumped on the merry money train,
Speaker 1: creating and distributing holiday themed dollars. People love them, and
Speaker 1: banks love that they got to keep their gold in
Speaker 1: the safe. But no fad last forever. When the US
Speaker 1: institutionalized the standardized national currency in the early eighteen sixties,
Speaker 1: all of these unique bills suddenly became worthless. Well kind of.
Speaker 1: If you happen upon a nineteenth century Santa dollar today,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be able to use it to buy your
Speaker 1: Christmas presents. But that doesn't mean that cash isn't coveted
Speaker 1: among collectors. They can fetch impressive prices. A single Saint
Speaker 1: Nick bill sold at auction in twenty eleven for forty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. And so this year, as you're writing your
Speaker 1: wish list to send off to the North Pole, consider
Speaker 1: asking Santa to drop some of those biographical bucks into
Speaker 1: your stocking. It's an investment that might just leave you
Speaker 1: feeling jolly. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
Speaker 1: over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time,
Speaker 1: stay curious.