A fortune between two currencies
Boston, 1920. A promoter offers to share a profit he says he earns through exchange rates. After the war, he explains, differences between currencies allow international postal reply coupons to be bought in one country and sold in another at a 100% profit.
A reply coupon is a modest object: it pays for the postage of an answer sent from abroad. In the proposed trade, this small instrument of correspondence becomes a way to profit from price differences between countries. The promoter presents the operation as his own business and offers lenders a share of its gains.
The offer takes the form of a ninety-day note. The lender hands over money and receives a written promise of more in return. The coupons’ journey remains out of sight, while the repayment amount and date fit on a piece of paper.
CLIPPED summary of the 1924 opinion, not a document collected in 1920. The exhibits share one judicial source.