Good Job, Brain! - 259: The Currency Exchange

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

Get your Scrooge McDuck on and let's dive into pool of coin and money trivia! Go big or go home in Chris' largest denominations quiz all about the high value coins and notes. And speaking of big, Colin looks into and through giant rai stones, the unusually heavy currency from Micronesia that looks like rock donuts. What makes our money dirty, or worse, contaminated? How do you clean or get rid of it? And play a round of Chump Change! where a world currency is hidden in the couch cushions of every answer. Also: Pepper X For advertising inquiries, please contact [e-mail]! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Ahoi, awesome alliance of alert and adorable audio attendees. Welcome to Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. This is episode 259, and of course, I'm your whole. Humble host, Karen, and we are your golden, gold beaders, gold-sizing gold bricks while playing golden eye and eating goldfish. I'm Colin. And I'm Chris.

I do, in fact, love some goldfish. Are there pumpkin spice goldfish, uh, for, is it season for that? Oh, there is goldfish limited edition, Duncan Pumpkin Spice Grams. Oh, okay. That makes more sense for just. side thickness of the graham cracker right right right yeah so i was looking at my notes from a previous show i don't even know how long ago was this this was episode 25 i was oh my gosh have you have you ever like read through your notes and it it reads like a crazy person

do you remember do you remember i mean when we used to record in person you all remember like i would have like those like long like reporters notebooks and i would do i can't even imagine this life that I had like prior to having a child where I had time to write things out longhand yeah so I still have those journals there's a stack of like I don't know five or six of them and it does it reads like some trivia adult person in foil hat manifesto yeah you left that journal lying around you'd end up like on a watch list it's so funny well because for for me I learned by writing down, right? So I remember when we used to, you know, let's not brag, then NorCal trivia championships, you know, when I study, I would just write things down. And that's kind of my way

of retaining things. Here, let me share, let me share some trivia I found in these notes. Maybe we'll remember some of these. Here we go. What is the longest word in the English language with only one vowel repeated? With only one vowel. God, this is so specific. Mississippi Strengthlessness Oh, okay So repeated Strengthlessnesses

Nice Strengthless strengthlessness Strengthlessness is I was going to say I remember learning once That strengths is the longest word With just one vowel

One vowel Yeah, yeah I think in that episode I also did like a Before and after mashup quiz Like a word sandwich quiz And then to use one of the questions Who lives deep in the 100-acre woods who also enjoys Asian appetizers?

Is that Winnie the Pooh-Poo Flatter? Yeah. That's so dumb. That's so dumb. You guys, I have a new world record to report my duty. My duty. It also happens to be an update to a previous segment on Good Job Brain. Just this past week, word came out of South Carolina that a new world's hottest pepper has been unleashed upon us.

It is the, it is a new pepper dropped. It is called Pepper X. It is branded. Pepper X is a registered trademark. Oh, yeah, it's not messing around. It is called Pepper X. And it is as much as three times hotter than the previous world record holder, the Carolina. Lina Reaper.

Why are we doing this to ourselves? Because they can. Because you can. That's exactly right. Because you can. Because you'll get a Guinness record or two. So Pepper X measures on average nearly 2.7 million Scoville heat units. So for comparison, a jalapeno is going to check in 2000, maybe up to 8,000.

Oh, wow. S-HU. Habanero going to get you into the, you know, a couple hundred thousand, a few hundred thousand scale. Right. So Pepper X is 2.7 million scobile heat units. I said that the news was out of South Carolina, but really it came to most of us via America's number one source for current events coverage, which is the YouTube show, Hot Ones. Where, yeah, Ed Curry appeared on Hot Ones. to receive his Guinness record to plug Pepper X. Ed Curry founded his little mini Pepper Empire.

He and his team at Pucker Butte Pepper Company in Fort Mill, South Carolina. They also invented the car. I'm trying to keep it straight here. They also invented the Carolina Reaper. So they've got the first and the second hottest peppers, like, under their belt. Yeah. Well, that's fine. Yeah.

I thought it was like, I thought this was something where, like, the Carolina Reaper grew itself. You know what I mean? And then we have man coming and playing God. No, like, out of nature. These are all engineered. They're all engineered. But, like, I was reading the story. It's like, I had no idea just the level of intrigue at play in the high stakes world of hot pepper.

So, Ed Curry, like, he said two things. One, he said that they basically. had Pepper X kind of ready to go for like 10 years he said they've been developing it. This is like the Donkey Kong guy. I was just thinking that. You just break the record by as much as you have to.

He said he had expected it sounds like someone else to come along and challenge the Carolina Reaper and he's kind of like well if no one else is going to do it I'm just going to raise the bar myself and so I'm going to unveil Pepper X on the world yeah. And he also further

he kind of implies that he's got some other, you know, even hotter stuff ready in the wings here. So, uh, let's hear from the creator himself, shall we? Uh, talking to the Associated Press, Ed Curry, described the heat of Pepper X as, quote, immediate and brutal. He said, I was feeling the heat for three and a half hours. Then the cramps. Then the cramps came. The cramps were horrible. He was laid out flat, just groaning in pain. I want to remind you, this is a all by way of praise, right? This is the proud creator talking

up, yeah, this is not a complaint at all. It's just, it's not for me at that point, that level of hot sauce. It's not, oh, no, that's not for you? That's not your thing. The cramped? I eat a spicy McChicken and halfway through them, like, damn, I should have got a regular McChicter.

Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty unassuming pepper. Some of them are scary looking, but I feel like a lot of these peppers, they never look as intimidating as the names are. No, I think they look really scary. So I have like a, like I said, I have plant seed catalogs, like heirloom seed catalogs. Peppers is a big chapter, right?

It's like all available peppers that you can buy the seeds and plant yourself. The hot peppers, the skin looks like it's blistering. Yeah. So it is right. The really hot peppers look weird. So I learned something interesting reading about Pepper X. So it is, in fact, pepper X very wrinkly. It's not, it's not big.

It's small, pretty round. It's like two-tone. And it's like yellow, green. It is super wrinkly. They say that the hottest concentration in a pepper is not in the seeds, as a lot of people think. But it's in the fleshy. It's in the fleshy part that binds the seeds.

And so the wrinklier, the pepper, like the more folds and room it has to kind of grow that sort of the fleshy part that really holds all the capsatinoids in there, which is what gives it its heat. yeah so that that is partly i guess what contributes to why it is so hot it is a crossbreed it sounds like with the carolina reaper and another unnamed pepper you know you got to protect your methods but yeah so new hottest pepper if this shows up in trivia it is no longer the carolina reaper it is now pepper x pepper x just so you know i am actually developing an even hotter pepper than that so i'm going to release that really soon that's through my company

Volcanic A-Hole Peppers LLC, so look for that on the market. Do you think he would have some sort of contract with the military or some sort? Do you know what I mean? Or some sort of like weaponry or? I read like along the chart of like, you know, where various peppers fall, I read that Pepper X has has higher scovial rating than bear spray. So like you would like, you know, like you'd be. I mean, maybe not in every way, but in some ways,

you might be through the ordeal faster getting sprayed with bear spray. Yeah. All right. Without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment, pop quiz, hot shot. I do have something due because I have to say that it's, for right now, the rooster is dead. my iconic barnyard buzzer rooster. We had a battery leak. I'm going to try to salvage it,

and I'm going to try to get it back to life. But right now the roosters, Debbie, you do have a substitute pinch hitter has come in, though. So listen out for that. Listeners, we don't know. It's family friendly, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. One of those X-rated trivia buzzers.

Yeah. All right. Here we go. I have a random trivial pursuit card here. You guys have your barnyard buzzers or barnyard buzzer substitute ready. Here we go. Let's answer some questions. Blue Edge for Geography. The active volcano, excuse my pronunciation. The active volcano, Popo Catapedal. The active volcano, Popo Catapel, is located about 40 miles from which. Capital City. Colin. Mexico City. Correct. Okay. Yep.

T.L. Together, as you know. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got it. You got it. Pink Wedge for Pop Culture, which pop star started the halftime show of the 2015 Super Bowl

atop a 14-foot-tall, 24-foot-long robotic lion. Oh. Oh, is related to a song. Yeah, oh, I'm pretty sure I know this. Colin? Was 2015, was that Katie Perry? Was that left shark here?

Wow. How far we've come? We're like, oh, I'm going to remember this robot lion. It's going to be the meme that comes out of this. Yeah. If there's one animal from this show that people will be talking about. Next question, Yellow Edge. What milestone number of monthly users did face?

Facebook Reach on October 4th, 2012. 2012? Colin. I was going to say a million, but that can't be right. Incorrect. Yeah. Chris, do you want to just buzz so we... Pretty good.

I am, I am buzzing in, though. One hundred million. One billion. Oh, my God. One billion back in 2012. Wow. What is it now? Monthly users.

Three billion. Oh, my gosh. Which is like half the planet, right? I mean, more or less. Roughly. Wow. All right. Next question.

Purple Wedge, which Broadway rap music? Nicole is set in a Dominican-American neighborhood in New York City. In the Heights, baby. In the Heights, correct. Greenwich for Science. Which mobile app started out under the name Picaboo? P-I-C-A-B-O-O. So not Kid P-C-A-B-O-O.

P-I-C-A-B-O. Collin. Is that a Snapchat or Snap? Yes, which makes sense. I was just thinking they got the ghost icon, right? Bikaboo. That's it. Okay, all right.

I kind of wish they went with that. I don't know. It's one of those names, though, Karen, right? Like, as you just did, any name where you have to immediately spell it for the person, like I feel like that's a failure. Picaboo, like P-I-C-C-E-G get it, you know? And it's like, yeah, I get it. I get it, yeah.

Good point. All right. Last question, Orange Wedge. Which Seattle Seahawk football player was voted by users to appear on the cover of the video game Madden NFL 15? Jeez. Colin? I'm going to guess Marshawn Lynch. Mm-mm.

Mm-hmm. Hmm. I believe this person is a Stanford grad. Richard Sherman. Ah. Richard Sherman says Cam Newton was the runner-up in the 16-player bracket

cool good job brains so today's episode you guys know that I'm a big fan of animaics Chris we actually saw the cast live once a few years ago and one of my life's greatest achievements

was that as a kid I memorized the country song where you know YACO lists out every country but that was back in 1993. And now 30 years later, things have changed. Countries have been renamed. New countries have been created with the newest and the youngest country being South Sudan back in 2011. And so I was looking into this. And the establishment of South Sudan also created a lot of newest and youngest country related trivia, including the world's newest or youngest currency, which is the South

Sudanese pound. So that got us thinking about money, big money, coins and notes, currency of the world. So for today's episode, we're heading to the currency exchange. All right, great. I love it. I love money. I love money. Well, you know, I fancy myself a bit of a numismatist.

I used to collect coins when I was a kid. So I always, I mean, it's the perfect thing to nerd out about, right? As a collector, like, you know, first of all, you can get your collection started immediately with what's in your pocket. Yeah, yeah. You know, you might find it on the street. But then as soon, I mean, it really appeals to the nerdy child that I was because it's like, oh, this, you know, this is the year that it was made right on the coin, right there. And then this is mint mark. and it shows you where it was made.

One of those things that it generates its own trivia, right? Yeah, yeah. You know, United States coins, World coins, they're real pieces of art, gorgeous portraits that are on them and or, you know, or graved into them. So I've got a quiz for you guys about large currency, either in terms of size or denomination. So, well, here's the big money currency quiz.

All right. So I want you each to get a writing implement and something to write on, because this is going to be a write down quiz. Some of these are going to be just write down an answer. Some of them are going to be, you've got to get an exact. Some of these are got to be closest to the pin. Nobody's going to be using their buzzers, and nobody has to hear from my friend, the shrilling chicken, for this segment only. All right. Are you ready?

Question number one, what is the largest denomination legal tender coin? that the U.S. Mint currently issues. I feel like this is a trick, but I'm just going to go with my... Not really. I'm just wondering... I don't know. No, this is in my head. This is not on you, yeah.

As of, it's like, as of 2023, you know, you can buy from the mint. Let me just be clear, these are not coins that are meant to be, like, used and put into circulation. It's like collectible. Collectors, investors, right, yeah.

So I had a legal tender, I thought meant like, you know, circulation. legal tender. I mean, no, no, no, you can use it if you want to. Oh, okay. You could, you could, you could absolutely go spend it. It is United States legal tender. Designed for that. Well, the, the thing is the, um, the actual value of the, the precious metal is significantly higher than the amount that struck on the line. So you could spend it, but you would be a fool to, to do that. Okay. All right. Let's answer. All right. What do you all think? Uh, Karen says

a hundred, Colin says a dollar. Karen, Karen is correct. Wow. Currently issues up to a maximum of, you know, $100 denomination platinum coin that are specifically like for collectors, investors, basically. How big is it? Do you know?

They could be different sizes depending on because it's all, it's all like these special edition kind of things. It's not like a pancake, yeah. No, no, no, no. It would be something you could fit in your pocket. So let's jump to question number two. What is the largest denomination paper currency that the United States currently issues? Largest denomination of paper currency that the United States currently issues.

Like as of 2023, they still make them and you can obtain them. Side question for newsmatic news. for the hobby of collecting. Yes. Is it just coins? It's not like bills, right? Or do you collect bills as well? You don't hear about people collecting bills.

People do. People definitely collect bills. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. I believe numismatismatism covers the collection of currency. Yeah.

Okay. But yeah, anyway, so what is the largest denomination, paper currency that United States currently? I'm just like, I'm shook from $100 coin here. I'm going to be off the rest of this quiz. Karen says $100,000. Colin says $100,000. You are both off by the same amount, by a factor of 1,000.

The largest denomination paper currency, the U.S. currently issues, is $100. Oh. It is a $100 bill. I've got some of those at home. That's not cool. That's right. In the past, the U.S. has made larger denomination bills, but it doesn't anymore. I know.

Just the 100. That's the top. Now let's go to What is the largest denomination bill that the United States has ever issued? Oh, man. I wonder why. Oh, I'll tell you.

I'll tell you later in the quiz. Oh, okay. If you want to know why, they only go up to the hundreds now. I will let you know, but just a little bit later. So stay tuned to good job, Bram. Don't touch that dial. We'll have more currency-related facts later.

Once the crew is done, answer the question, what is the largest denomination bill of the U.S. has ever issued? Karen says $10,000. Colin again going on that answer of $100,000. In this case, Colin gets it. It is $100,000. Now, Karen, the largest denomination ever created for public use was a $10,000 bill in 1918.

But they did create, in 1934, during the Great Depression, a $100,000 bill featured Woodrow Wilson on it. It was never meant to be circulated. It was for transactions between federal banks to make it easier for banks to do transactions with each other. I was going to think something like that. Okay. It was then and is now illegal for a private citizen. to own a hundred thousand dollar bill so if you if i owe you money and i hand you a hundred thousand dollar bill you need to call the cops and there was yes so there were like they made some

ten thousands for for circulation and again like it's very rare for a collector to own one of those today they're worth they're worth much more than ten thousand dollars i was just going to say yeah you can find it but they're still legal tender anyway question number four while many women including Susan B. Anthony and Saka Chihuahua have appeared in portrait form on U.S. coins. Only one woman has ever been featured in such a way on a piece of United States paper currency. She was already dead by this point. It was a $1 silver certificate and it was issued in 1886. Who is it? This is a great piece of trivia. This is a really killer piece of trivia. I will say that this bill is well known, you know, amongst collectors as a piece that they want to have for this reason, for that, that, for this reason of, you know, it's the only piece of U.S. paper currency where instead of a man, you have a woman in the, in the portrait, you know, area.

Great question. It has to be a real person. You have heard of this person? And deceased. And they are, they were dead by 1886. Let's see some answers. Let's see, maybe we're going to get it. I don't know.

Colin says Betsy Ross, which is a, I think that's a solid guess. It's wrong, but it's a solid guess. Karen writes down Washington wife. I thought about that too. I thought about Martha Washington. Martha Washington. I don't know if they'd be able to accept Washington wife on Jeopardy. Anyway, the correct answer is Martha Washington.

So Karen actually got it right. Congratulations, Karen. We'll take that as a joint as a joint answer since I said I'm going to be I'm going to go celebrity jeopardy rules and I'm going to accept it. Okay, right. So let's go to another question. Hold on. I have a question. It was just just commemorating her like. No, it was just they just put her on it. Yeah. Okay. They were putting a bunch of people on the silver certificates at that point. She was one of them. But but and they were like, oh, the first woman will like. ever put on one of these bills, surely we'll put more on later. But, yeah. Surely it won't be 200 plus years. So of all the United States bills that are out there right now in circulation, okay? Now, again, we know it goes up to 100, right? And, you know, there's a few others out there, very, very few of the higher of your 500,000, 10,000s.

But, like, basically, you know, there's not that many of them out there. But of all the U.S. bills out there right now in circulation, which bill is the most common? Oh, oh. Which is the most common? Again, a really good piece of trivia, an interesting thing to note. You can talk about this at parties, you know? Colin writes the 20 and Karen writes the 20. it does seem like that doesn't yet we're wrong you're always looking for whenever you need a five or a ten you can't really find one but you go to an ATM and what comes out 20 the most common bill out there right now in circulation of united states currency is the one hundred dollar no who's using them there are 18.5 billion hundreds out there

compare in the second place is 14.3 billion one dollar bills okay here's the catch the vast majority of those are outside the u.s yeah yeah they are held by either foreign governments or criminals drug dealers stuff like that there so here's the thing one of the reasons why we don't make like like much higher denomination bills anymore is because if you cap it at a hundred it makes it harder you know for people to use u.s. currency for illicit means and stuff like that you have to have a whole suitcase full of hundreds right it's harder to hide than if you had like have a slim little envelope with a yeah right right with a million dollars worth of ten thousand dollar bills in it so something like 80% of the total value of all U.S. currency and circulation is in the form of like $100

bills outside the country. Wow. A quick rundown. 14.3 billion singles are out there. 1.5 billion $2 bills are currently circulation. Those are in the pockets of our nation's uncles. Yes, exactly. Um, 3.5 billion... $3.5 billion, $5.5 bills, 2.3 billion 10, 11.5 billion, 20. So there are... Wow. Wow. Wow. 2.5 billion 50s. That's why you never get a 50.

And then $18.5 billion $100 bills. But most of the hundreds are outside the country. Wow. So, yeah, speaking of the rest of the world, let's turn our attention for a moment to world currency? Let me ask you this one. This question is a closest to the pin gets the point. What is the largest denomination of paper currency ever issued around the world? What is that? One, two, three. Yeah, count your zeros and then tell me what you wrote down. I'm going to do it in scientific notation here for you. Both Karen and Colin have written 100 million. Okay. There is a tie. Well, yeah, obviously there's a tie. You're both equidistant from the, from the answer. So are we wrong? You're both wrong. You're both low. Wow. So. All right. Collin has written what? Two billion. Two billion. Whoops. Karen has written 10 billion. Okay, good. So there's, okay. I will tell you that congratulations. Congratulations, Karen, by writing $10 billion, you are closer to the pen.

So let me tell you the story. The unit of currency that we are talking about is the Pengo. This is a short-lived currency of Hungary that was issued for about 20 years after World War I until just after World War II. The Pengo experienced what was apparently the worst hyperinflation, a currency has ever had ever okay so i did some extremely back of the envelope math here i could have gotten this wrong but i'm pretty sure that when they introduced the pengo right after world war one okay it was one pengo was worth about 16 u.s. cents okay that sounds about right inflation took hold and it became so worthless that they had to keep issuing higher and higher and higher denominations but they

got to the point where to save the zeros that they're writing down, you know, on the thing, they had to start, first they had to start calculating in a unit known as a mill pengo, which is one million pangos. And then after that, you know, became too small. They had to start calculating and writing the number in units of bill pangos. And you'd think to yourself, oh, a billion pangos. which is true, except at the time in Hungary and in some places in Europe at that time, a billion did not mean a thousand million. It was the word that they used to mean a million million. So a bill pango was a trillion pangos.

And before the currency was finally phased out, the highest denomination bill that they, that they ended up printing was valued 100 million Bill Pengos and folks that is 100 quintillion pengos

so Karen you said 10 billion you are closer to the true number which is 100 quintillion how many zeros is that it's a bunch a lot

it's a Pepper X number of zeros, I think. Anyway, that's the Pango. Wow. Yeah, I'm not even done yet. So keep going. Here's another question. Now move from denomination

into physical size. Oh, no. The largest in terms of physical size, legal tender coin ever produced by the U.S. was released in 2019 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of what?

2019. Oh, okay. Minus 50. That's a good place to start, yep. Equals. Carry the one. I've got a good guess. Cotland has a guess.

Well, so I got to 1969. Isn't that Summer of Love and also Charles Manson? You should write down Charles Manson. The front. is Charles Manson in portrait. Yeah. And then the back is Woodstock. Right.

The stage has seen from the audience. Uh, Colin has written something down. What about you, Karen? Okay. All right. Let's have some answers. Colin says, the moon landing. And Karen still playing Celebrity Jeopardy says space.

Just, it's up there. Something happened. It was not the 50th anniversary of space. I'm going to know what I meant I'm going to give the point to Colin it was the 50th anniversary of the moon landing Here's the thing This coin

There's actually there's a line of them But the big one is the silver dollar It is three inches in diameter So it's pretty big Now that's not the coolest thing about this Actually this coin is really cool these coins are curved they're concave on the one side the concave sign it's it shows a footprint in the surface of the moon like a space boot footprint and it's and on the convex side where it's domed you know that picture that was taken by neil armstrong and it's of buzz aldrin and then in buzz aldrin's visor on a space suit you can see like neil armstrong reflected in the visor and the capsule

the other side of the coin is just the visor. It's the visor. So it comes out and it looks like the visor on the spacesuit. I looked at this. I'm like, damn, that is a cool coin. Yeah. How much one of those sets you back? You know what?

The thing is you can buy the like the silver half dollars for not so much money. The platinum dollar is like $1,500 basically to buy the biggest one. It's not, it's not bad. It's not, it's not crazy. I mean, it's no, it's not a Bill Pango. It's no, it's no, it's no, uh, the thing that I'm going to tell you about right now in this final question. The largest precious metal coin ever created anywhere. Again, this is legal tender. Not that anyone would actually use it for that. Not that it's legal for you to own it. But it is technically, yeah, but the largest as, you know, certified by, Guinness book, Precious Metal Coin ever created was minted in 2012 by the Perth Mint and features what

on its face? I'll read the question again. The largest precious precious metal coin ever created was minted in 2012 by the Perth Mint and features what on its face. All right. Okay.

Okay. I'm going to stick with what I wrote. All right. Colin has written Uluru, and Karen has written Kangaroo. Karen, again, dominating. It is the kangaroo. The coin is known as the one-ton Australian kangaroo. It is 1,000 kilograms of pure gold bullion. It is legal tender in Australia, not that you'd ever, you know, it's massive. it's just a huge huge but it's a coin they used a hydraulic press to stamp like they had to they had to do a lot of research and work to figure out how to actually strike this point but it's got a kangaroo on its face um its face value is a million dollars australia

the actual value of the gold is a hundred million australian dollars which is about 63 million million dollars US. Yeah. Where does it live at like the Australian Federal Reserve or like where is it? They took it on tour a few years back around the world so you can look at it. It's currently in the Perth Mint. Anyway, there it is. The big money quiz. I think I think I don't know who won, but you don't get a there is no monetary prize. So don't worry about it. I remember there was like a magician or it's something like that at a kid's birthday party that said the kid's going to win big money. And then he took out a massive. novelty size, $100 bill, you know, I remember once learning, you know, as a kid, and this just absolutely delighted me that, I mean, with modern banking, this is not necessarily the case anymore, but that once upon a time, a check could be written, you know, on as long as it had the right information, it didn't have to be on this nice little, neat little rectangular square paper in your bank. Like those giant oversized novelty checks, for instance, if they had actual correct information on them, like a bank routing number in your name on, it was legal to be cashed.

Now, whether the bank would put up with you or not, but they couldn't reject you on the grounds that it wasn't legal. They could reject you on the grounds that it was a pain in the butt. But like, yeah, that like the giant, you know, here's your game show check, like could actually go take that to the bank and cash it if it had the right information on it. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget.

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So, Chris, how many $1 bills? are around currently in circulation? Oh, as of December 2020, 14.3 billion. Wow, 14.3 billion. So here's a fun fact. There was a study done on $1 bills in New York City,

and they've identified... Oh, dear. This is according to NPR, each dollar bill in the study carried about 3,000 types of bacteria on its surface. Another study said, also a New York $1, identified a total of 397 bacterial species.

We hear this all the time that one of the grossest things in our lives is money. Yeah. Because it passes through hands. It's just so many people have touched it. What makes our money gross? A lot of things. The number one culprit is sebum. S-E-B-U-M-C-B-U-M.

It is the oils that your skin releases. The oils on your hands, they're natural. It's what blackheads are made of. Our skin oil keeps building up layer after layer as we handle money. Yeah. I mean, it's like, I prefer to think of it as like, I'm giving you a little bit of myself when I give you my money. But the euros, the European Central Bank, they actually, they know that sebum or our oil is a problem.

So they actually use a sebum repellent coating on the euro notes. Interesting. A lot of the currencies out there now have what they call polymer notes, which is like plastic. Yeah, yeah. But our U.S. dollars are still made of organic materials. Sure, there are a lot of microbes. But the microbes aren't really growing or thriving on banknotes. Cash is really easy for germs to settle on, but typically they don't have the right temperature or the right conditions to allow microbes to proliferate, reproduce, and grow.

So you're not seeing like colonies blooming on your dollar. But it's still gross. So please just wash your hands. That's number one is wash your hands. but what makes money dirty to a point of concern is constant moisture because constant moisture will make a good environment for bacteria to thrive mold mildew and eventually it will become a health hazard but I know what you're thinking who's keeping their money and water

turns out it's a very common thing for money to become contaminated due to natural disasters it's very very common you think of storms flooding basements roofs being destroyed and rain coming into the attic

and on a larger scale if you think about Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina no one could get into the Federal Reserve the Atlanta branch in New Orleans for weeks. And so all of their vaults and all of their stuff below sea level was sitting in water, gross water for a really, really long time.

Some storms could go through towns and the towns would end up with like waterlogged, moldy, smelly money from all the businesses, all the buildings. And so what do you do? What do you do if you have contaminated money? Obviously, there are other specifications for contamination. There actually is an official list, and I'll tell you what contamination means. Currency may be contaminated due to prolonged exposure to water and liquids, exposure to blood during feces or other bodily fluids, exposure to sewage, exposure to any chemical liquid

or form substance that may pose a health hazard. Exposure to Pepper X. And so what do you do with contaminated? money. You have to dispose the contaminated money at a like a federal reserve bank and they have very specific directions on what to do. They tell

you to group the denominations in a certain way. You have to bag it a certain way. You have to double bag it. You have to label it. And then they will basically credit you with the amount of money that you turn in essentially. You do

not put money in the washing machine and dryer like a lot I don't know why people think this is a thing maybe because we call it money laundering

but please do not actually launder your money it ruins the bills the hot water can damage the security features the detergents use could like affect

the coating and different chemicals that's in the bills including the counterfeit marker you know you go to the supermarket and you give them like a hundred dollar bill

they use the counterfeit pen. Oh, the little pen. So the detergent might render that. It might give you a false positive. Banks, they will shred your washed money, your useless washed money. So do not wash your money. You know, they say this happens a lot when you're cleaning out like a house of, you know, like a deceased family member or someone you know. And it's just something that's sitting in the basement for like a really long time. And it's like magazines and photos. It can happen to them. It could happen to currency too. It makes sense. Yeah, yeah. They died on the money, which is a pile of money. Yes, and that is contamination. So there is a cleaning process where they

won't damage the notes. It's like high pressure heated carbon dioxide. It's almost like dry cleaning the bills, but that's that's like an industrial service. It's like you're not going to do that at home. But most of the time, contaminated dollars, they just get shredded and they get destroyed. They're just not worth the effort. So I mentioned earlier that the U.S. bill is made out of organic materials, which kind of in a way is good because it can decompose. The Salt Lake Branch of the San Francisco Federal Reserve, the shreds are burnt to cure cement. They use it. They find a new life. And my favorite, and I'll end it with that, is my favorite way is back to the New Orleans branch of the Atlanta Reserve, the cash reds are turned into compost for gardens.

How cool is that? I once found when I was in New York a $20 bill. It's out on the street, you know, and it was right on the curb. It was, in fact, in about two to three inches of water, liquid, liquid, let's say. and I was walking, I was walking with my wife. And I was like, wow, that, that's a, that's a $20 bill sitting there just in this lid. It's like, it's so, we were, we were a couple blocks from our friend's house. I'm like, I'm, I'm going to get this $20 bill.

And I, I reached in, no, listeners. I did. I did. I reached in and it was, I held it. It was complete. And I kind of just carried it at arm's length to our friend's house. We walked in. I need to use your sink.

I need to watch this bill that I found in the gutter outside. But yeah, that was my idea. And I tried not to think about it too much after that. But that was my grossest but also highest street money find. Nice. But you spent it, I mean, right away, right? Like you've tried to pawn it off onto somebody else's. I tried to put it right back into the New York economy as fast as I could.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, after we decide on a show topic, As I was falling asleep that night, it just, it hit me like a flash. I was like, I know what I'm going to talk about. I need to talk about the biggest money there is. I mean money that is literally as tall as a person and weighs as much as a car. What? A few years ago, I first heard about Ray Stones, this R-A-I-I-stones.

This was one of those things where as soon as I learned about it, I started seeing references to it everywhere. I don't know if I was just blind to the references before. Bader or mine off. Yeah, it is. Yep, exactly. Raystones are a unique form of money, and they are part of the traditions of the native people living in the very small

Micronesian Island of Yap, YAP, YAP, the Yapese people. Many generations ago, hundreds of years, the Yapese people started using Ray Stones as stores of value. This continued up into the 20th century. Let me describe to you a raystone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so a ray stone is generally circular. It is carved from a single block of a particular type of limestone. Raystones were commonly six feet wide, eight feet wide. The largest raystone we know of today is 12 feet in diameter. It is 20 inches thick and weighs almost 9,000 pounds. So it doesn't move. It doesn't move much. So the race stones, the race stones have a hole in the middle. So notably, this is one of the defining features of the classic raystone. It has

a hole in the middle. At least theoretically make them easier to transport either by putting a log or some bamboo through the middle or even just kind of rolling it like a wheel, you know, on an axle. So race stones, as I say, they're carved from a very specific type of limestone. not on yap. This limestone is not found on gap. It is found in neighboring islands. It's found in neighboring islands. Most of the raystones are made from limestone quarried on the island of Palau.

Now, Chris's ear is perking up a little bit. Palau, of course, is known to most Americans as a setting for season 10, I believe, going way back of Survivor. Yes, Survivor Palau. It is a very picturesque island. to mint a raystone, or create a raystone, as it were, the Yapese people would sail out on boats a few hundred miles to pull out. It's not right there. They'd quarry the rock on site. They would carve it up, get the hole in the middle, polish it, get it looking really nice, and then transport them back to Yap. If your family could claim even one large raystone, you were probably

doing pretty well if you could have one sort of person-sized raystone in every village they would have an area like a town square a market area maybe something like that some central public area where the large raystones would live and it was almost like a bank and everyone knows whose raystone is whose. Every stone has a history attached to it. Every stone becomes part of the oral history and tradition of that village. And everyone in the village knows the lineage of each stone, who traded it to whom for what, what it was acquiring, all of that, even though the stones don't move from the central area. This is where it's kind of become sort of this example of what is money and what do we mean when we talk about stored value that if I'm trading a raystone

for something, and let me, let me, let me pause a moment to emphasize, you're not, you're not trading a six foot raystone for, you know, some eggs. Like these, these, as I say, these were for wealthy families, wealthy clans, chiefs. If you had these really large ones, you would, for the most part, you wouldn't spend them the same way that, you know, today for the most part, super wealthy families don't spend most of their money. But if you were to use a raystone for an exchange, it might be like a dowry in, you know, like a between two high profile families, or, you know, it might be to seal a political alliance or really big, big ticket purchases. These giant raystones don't need to move anywhere. If I'm in family A and I enter into an agreement

to, you know, buy a huge parcel of property from family B, we just say like, okay, that raystone there, that's yours now, and I have this property. And everybody in the village knows it. And it just sort of gets sort of tacked on to the oral history of this race stone. It's like, oh, it used to be family A and now family B. So they started popping up a lot, you know, a few years ago, several years ago now, in the context of the rise of cryptocurrency, among other things, sort of as an example of a currency that carries its own history with it, which is,

It's interesting, twist on like a ledger, you know. But it is in fact true that each of these massive raystones was known to everyone and had its own verifiable history. You couldn't falsify and say like, oh, yeah, that one's mine. I'm going to trade it for you. They're like, no, no, no, it's not. Everyone knows that belong to the other family. Everyone knows. That's right.

And it's, you know, weighs 9,000 pounds. It's not like you're going to abscond with it in the middle of the night. But also just popping up in the context of what does value mean on an international level. You know, countries will sometimes make huge payments to each other in the form of large sums of gold. The gold doesn't go anywhere. The gold sits in the same bank. It's just transferring ownership. It's like, okay, well, this gold used to belong to France and now it belongs to England, even if it may not actually move.

And that's really not that different, conceptually, from the Raystone sitting in the public square, just kind of transferring ownership over time. The people who study the Yapese culture and history believe this story. So according to the tradition, as the story goes, there was a crew bringing back one of these giant ray stones back to Yap from Palau, probably, and the raft or the boat with the coin sank. They were in a storm. And, you know, I mean, as I say, long trip. The coin sank down to the bottom of the water, bottom of the ocean there. But the crew made it back to Yap, let everybody know.

what happened and everyone collectively agreed well okay the coin was quarried and carved it's worth this much so even though it's still sitting on the bottom of the ocean we're gonna just count it that's right we're going to count it and the family that it belonged to could use it to settle debts it transferred ownership many times over the generations even though no one ever saw it on yap they all had this mental accounting and agreement that this Raystone sitting at the bottom of the ocean is still legal tender in our village and we can trade it even though it's sitting there and is never, ever, ever, ever going to be moved. And like that, I think, is the really cool kind of captivating sense of the question, what is money? What does money really mean? And it kind of sets you off

into sort of those philosophical tensions here if you think about it for too long. Big rock donuts, man. Big rock donuts. I encourage you to go online and look at pictures of the Raystones. They're very cool. They look like giant, flat rock donuts. I mean, there's no other way to put it to the tune of Rock Lobster. Rock Donuts. Yeah. Rock donuts. What? We know each other too long. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh. No frills, delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points

on your first five orders. Shop now at no-frails.ca. One last segment, I have a quiz, and I would like you two to work together. This quiz is called chump change. Chump change.

I have here 10 trivia questions, just general trivia, but every answer, or part of the answer, every answer is also name of a currency. Okay. What you have to do is answer the trivia question and also tell me what country has this currency.

All right. Okay. We'll jump in and you'll get the rules very, very quickly. All right. Question number one. Work together, Chris and Colin. This publishing company initially focused on printing tickets and timetables for Chicago's railroad industry. Shortly after that, they started.

started printing maps. Hmm. This publishing company initially focused on printing tickets and timetables for Chicago's railroad industry. And then soon after, they started printing maps. He does, I mean, I guess

AAA does maps. It's not that. Rand McNally? Like, who does? Every answer or part of the answer of these questions is also a name of a currency. Oh, of a currency. Oh, okay. Oh, yes. Rand McNally. The RAND?

The RAND, the RAND, which is the currency of what country? Denmark? No. Wrong continent. South Africa. South Africa. South African RAND, yes. Rand, yes.

Rand McNally. Okay, now we know the format. Okay, all right, okay, yeah. Got it now. A hankering or a longing for something. Aha. Oh, oh, yeah. A yen.

Correct, a yen, which is the currency of what nation? Japan. Japan. Japan. Next question. This 1962 film about the American Frontier is considered to be one of Hollywood's greatest epics. It stars Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, Debbie Reynolds, Gregory Peck, and John Wayne. This movie and the stars are kind of before our time, but even we know that these are big names.

What movie is this? Again, this 1962 film about the American Frontier is considered to be one of Hollywood's greatest epics. It stars Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, Debbie Reynolds, Gregory Peck, and John Wayne. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I think it's how the West was won, as in the Juan, as in the universe of the currency of what South Korea. Nice, the W-O-N. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At first, I was like a fistful of dollars, but I'm like, no, no, no, no. Aaron would not do that.

How the West was won. One. North Korea also uses the wand, but they use the North Korean wand, which is a different currency than the South Korean one. All right. Next question. This is a unit of measure that's one-eighths fluid ounce, usually for whiskey. uh what is that is that a is that a dram how much what is a it is a dram okay all right dram is the currency of armenia oh did not know that absolutely not aware of the armenian dram the armenian dram

all right next one i'll tell you first this is Uzbekistan currency okay in math what does the greek letter Sigma represent? A sum, right? It is the sum. The sum, S-U-M. Nice. Okay. In 2003, Manchester United made big news when they transferred

good old David Beckham to what team? Oh. Again, in 2003, Manchester United made big news when they transferred David Beckham to what team? And what has a currency in it? Yeah. Liverpool, the Chudley cannons.

It's not a British team. Oh, wait, was this when he came to the U.S.? Was this when he came to? No, this is when he got sold to Real Madrid. Okay, the reall. Okay. The reall is the currency of Brazil, the Brazilian real. Ah, yeah, I was thinking like British themes. Okay.

A lot of nations also use some sort of version of the word real or R-A-L-R-I-A-L. Oh, yeah, yeah. All right, next question. What is the name for a cold-smoked whole herring split lengthwise in half? commonly eaten at breakfast. A breakfast herring? It's not lox, because lox is usually... Salmon.

Salmon. This is more of a UK thing. Okay, okay. I'm sure I, when you say it, I'm like, oh, yeah. I know, I know. I'm looking for Kipper. Kipper. Kipper. The KIP, K-I-P. The K-P is the currency of.

of Laos. Okay. The Kip. All right. All right. Next question. What music producer and songwriter was behind rehab by Amy and Winehouse? Shallow with Lady Gaga, which also he won an Oscar for, and Uptown Funk with Bruno Mars.

Oh. Well, I mean, it's Mark Ronson, I think, right? Is that? Oh, the Mark. Mark. Mark Ronson. Ah, okay. And I'm looking for the mark.

The mark, in clarification, the mark, the German mark, is no longer in use. The mark still appears as what is called the convertible mark, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Hmm. We remember the pre-Euro days. I definitely grew up, yeah, Deutsche Mark. I remember, like, that's just that. Deutschmark, the Italian lira. Mm.

All right. Last question. Last question. This is the time unit that describes a day on Mars So one rotation around the sun Oh, doesn't they call it a Sol? Oh, yeah. S-O-L, also the currency of Peru

The Peruvian Sol. It sounds like a fish. The Chilean Sea Bats, the Peruvian soul. S-O-L, yes, the Peruvian soul. All right. That was hard or not. I'm sorry. It was a good.

It's a good quiz. How the West was won. All right. And that's our show. Thank you all for joining me. And thank you listeners for listening in. Hope you learn stuff about rock donuts. How funny.

The last episode I said rock milk. Hope you learn stuff about Ray Stones, about the big kangaroo coin. And how to get rid of contaminated money. You can find us on all major podcast apps and on our website, Good JobBrain.com. This podcast is part of Airwave Media Podcast Network. Visit airwavemedia.com to listen and subscribe to other shows like Tumble, The Science Podcast for Kids, History, Tea Time, and Triviality.

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