Incorrect Television/Film Tropes About Antiques & Collectables

One of the more common Television Tropes that you will see is confederate money is worthless. Often times the protagonist will go to great effort, expense, and through great danger to locate a vast fortunate that ends up being a large amount of "worthless" Confederate States of America notes.

I remember "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? Episode 16: A Night of Fright is No Delight" from childhood where Scooby, Shaggy, Fred, Daphne, and Velma had to stay in a haunted house for an entire night for Scooby to be entitled to a portion of a Million $ inheritance from the deceased Colonel Beauregard Sanders. The gang eventually unmask the crooks trying to scare Scooby and the others out of their inheritance but in the end they find out the treasure chest will all the money is filled with worthless CSA dollars and that the joke is on them.

This Television Trope was never entirely based in fact, CSA notes have always had novelty value and are not totally worthless. Although a vast majority of Confederate money was indeed worth very little since the South had printed it in such large sums in the last few desperate years of the American Civil War and it wasn't backed by anything since the south had lost and couldn't repay any of its debts. In more recent years CSA notes have gained substantial interest from coin and currency collectors and have a sizable base of collectors that collect them. The more common notes produced in huge quantities in decent condition may only be worth $25 or so and possibly less if heavily worn or damaged but that is not WORTHLESS as television would have you believe and many of the more desirable and less common notes can be worth in the hundreds or even thousands of dollars per note.

That chest of CSA notes that Scooby-Doo inherited may not be all that worthless if he had done some research and had a eBay store to reach collectors! He and Shaggy might have been sitting pretty with plenty of cash to fund all the excursions to the local burger and malt they could have wanted!

Your Thoughts? Do you have any examples on how Films and Television get Antiques and Collectables wrong?

Joe2007

 

I think you have seen that episode of Scooby-Doo a number of times.

 

Never watched Scooby Doo.
I can't remember but there was an article about this some time back that made mention of a film or show that had an item was not correct.

 

I thought I was "too mature" to watch Scooby-Doo at the time!