selling money at a profit 03 February 08

I’m sitting here writing a thinly-disguised polemic about the importance of individual fulfilment and satisfaction – the disguise is a report for MLA London about building relationships between business and cultural institutions – when ebay helpfully remind me that I need a new windscreen wiper motor for the land rover, which will soon, like Klinger’s jeep, be built entirely out of mail-ordered parts. At the bottom of the message, among the also-availables, there are people wondering whether I would like to buy some money.

It turns out that I can get a £20 note with Jasper Fforde’s signature on it for only £49.99, unless of course a bidding war ensues. The seller notes apologetically that the note has been used and bears a bank teller’s squiggle. Digging a bit further reveals that age, rarity, firstness, discontinuation and numerical quirks are all enough to inflate the value of a note to several times its face value.

I’m not going to poke fun at anyone or speculate about the mazy contortions that must happen within the mind of a collector who has detected scarcity – my continuing quest for just the right luggage would strike most people as equally ridiculous – but Milo Minderbinder would have hesitated to try selling people money at a profit.

The seller doesn’t accept paypal either, so if you want this note you will have to send him some sort of paper token of value that he can exchange for other goods.