Weird way to make $250,000 from Andy Warhol...

[Dien Rice]

Wow, thanks Gordon for sharing that!

I didn't know about the "Deadwood" soap scam... I read about what really happened...

Essentially, con artist "Soapy Smith" (who died in 1898) would publicly wrap some bars of soap in bills - ranging from $1 to $100 - then put the paper soap wrapper around that, so the money was hidden. He'd then mix them among ordinary bars of soap (which had no money)...

Then he'd sell them. One of the buyers would get a bar of soap, tear it open, and whoop that he got some money - and the crowd would go wild.

(That guy who got the money was one of Soapy Smith's shills...)

Later on, Soapy Smith would announce that the soap with the $100 hadn't been sold yet - and he'd auction off the remaining lot of soap to the highest bidder... and skidaddle out of there...

More detailed account here (from Wikipedia)...

However, it looks like the way the Andy Warhol sketch sellers did it was legal...

Gadzooks!

- Dien

Originally Posted by GordonJ

Deadwood, the city. The TV show and the movie. All celebrated a colorful town in a unique moment of American history. No man's land whites would say, sacred ground to American natives.

Anyhow, in the show, Seth Bullock, one of the real life legends of Deadwood, keeps rousting a character in town selling SOAP with a prize inside.

Pretty much a 2,000 year old scam. But this take you tell us about, and with the rise of NFT's, those non fungible tokens, maybe one can do something legit.

The point of the mschf crowd, to make art accessible, is one of debate.

But I see some possiblilties, so thanks Dien for sharing this find.

Now, I've ordered 100 boxes of popcorn from a local vendor, going to put a sealed penny in each one. One of those is worth 500 bux. You can have a shot of it for only 9.00 plus shipping, and even if you only get an ordinary penny, you still have some delicious popcorn to eat while watching Deadwood on TV.