President Kardashian stood at the podium. The cameras were on. The broadcast was going. But she continued bickering with her mother. "You're on the air why don't you talk already?" "YOU are telling ME to talk? I'm President!" she adjusted her hair "I can talk when I **** want to talk! You want me to talk? OK? OK? I'm talking now! Because I decided to, you didn't make me!"
She looked into the cameras, smiled. "People! Bitcoin is bust. The US dollar is bust. GOLD is bust, what with SpaceX dropping that **** gold asteroid on us. I tried to buy a pair of shoes but they looked at my credit card and just laughed! So you know what you know what, all those old moneys, they're bust. The new money is ..."
She adjusted her loose red tie over her low cut blouse. Everyone, everyone was watching her now. She looked like a contented cat.
"... monopoly money."
The economy was upended overnight. Which was a good thing, since the previous economy was quite thoroughly broken, ground up, burned, buried, mulched, and was now essentially high-grade organic fertilizer.
But it only lasted a few days. Not only was monopoly money fairly easy to forge, but by far the greatest existing reserves were in the Parker Brothers warehouses.
A few days later president Kardashian appeared again. "OK. OK. That was a good plan, wasn't it? We had a few good days of it. But those Parker Brother executives are sooo annoying. So I'm ending it on them. Monopoly money is no longer money. The new money is ..."
she smiled
"... Playboy magazines!"
George sat back in his easy chair, watching the news. He was grinning like crazy. "Martha, you've been nagging me about those magazines all these years. Well, In your face! We're rich!"
... a few days later, "National Geographics!"
"I told you so, George" gloated Martha.
... a week later, president Kardashian's eyes twinkled. "Ponies!"
... the next day she was more annoyed than usual. "OK, ponies didn't work out so well. You would not BELIEVE what that shoe store told me when I brought in a pony. But this next one is good. Marbles!"
As a currency, marbles were a keeper. They were small, attractive, easy to carry, they were easier to find than forge, and there were enough of them to actually run the economy. Antique ones were distinguishable from modern marbles by the three raised rough spots ("pontils") where they had rested while being fired. Their real allure, though, was that their heyday had been so long ago that most of them were lost and buried. The treasure hunt was on.
Martha came to the knock on the door. "Hello?"
Two men stood their in dirty overalls, with masks and protective glasses and big canisters of something on their backs. "G' eevnin, ma'am. We're from Bug-Ex Pest Control, and we've been doing work for other people in your neighborhood" said the short one. The tall scruffy skinny one in the back tried to look professional.
"Oh we don't want any ..."
"We found this bugger on your sidings," said the short man, holding up an ugly termite, its wings fluttering.
"Oh my!"
"Perhaps we could do an inspection? Just one ribbon."
"Oh. I'd have to ask George. George!"
"What?"
"These men want to check our house for bugs, they're charging one marble!"
"What?"
"BUGS! TERMITES! They ... caught ... a ... termite!"
"Oh fer crissakes ..." he started to get up "one marble you say? Sure let them look around." He settled back in his chair, deciding he didn't need to get up after all.
Martha opened her purse and paid them a small ribboned marble. "We'll just look around," said the short one. The tall tipped his hat to acknowledge her, "Ma'am", and followed behind.
Martha wandered back in the kitchen. Termites. This house is a hundred years old, and now termites. If only George were more handy. She was flustered, having those two scruffy men poking around their property.
The men were looking by the back porch. "This house is from 1920," muttered the short man to his companion, "but records show the foundation dates back to 1873." He took out a small shovel and started digging.
"Old middens are happy hunting grounds," grinned the taller one, watching on.
"Payday!" said the short one, turning up a shovelful of marbles. "Go make yerself useful," he said. "Look for bugs or something."
Martha came around, and the short one took some of the soil and put it in a container. "Taking samples," he said. "You've definitely got an infestation here. I'm afraid we're going to have to fumigate."
"You said you were just inspecting," said Martha. "Is this going to cost extra?"
"Yes. Afraid so. Twenty ribbons, or one big aggie."
Martha looked at the ground, concerned. "I'm going to have to talk to George again."
Inside George was watching a football game. "They found a termite infestation," said Martha.
"What?"
"TERMITES! They were digging. They say they need to fumigate and it will cost more."
"Scammers. I bet they're planting termites themselves," said George.
"No no. They were digging and taking samples."
"Doesn't prove anything."
"Oh do you know what? I thought I saw some old marbles in that dirt, too! I think I remember grandma throwing them there when I was little."
"Marbles?" asked George. "MARBLES? They ARE scammers!" He suddenly moved very quickly. Went to the closet and pulled out his shotgun. "Well I am going to make THEIR day."
Martha hustled back to the men, who were digging more. "Oh George doesn't want fumigation. I think you had better leave."
"Do you realize the seriousness of these buggers?" asked the short one.
George rounded the corner, took aim, and blasted. He missed, mostly, but he was reloading. The buggers realized that they had seriously better skedaddle. "I'm Not Losing MY Marbles!" roared George, and he blasted again.
Back when president Kardashian made marbles the official currency, Akron Ohio had quickly become the financial capital of America. The Akron Toy Company was the world's first mass-produced toy company, founded in 1884 by Samuel C Dyke. There were 32 marble companies started in the Akron area between 1884 and 1951. Marbles from Mathew Lang's 1890 injection-molded clay marble company, for example, were exceptionally valued.
Old Akron homes naturally had an excess of antique marbles everywhere. Pretty soon Akron property prices were higher than Silicon Valley, especially in Akron's formerly rundown south side. Parasson's Italian Restaurant was where the power brokers all gathered. They had belly dancing there Saturday nights.
Martin F Christensen patented the technique for mass producing ball bearings in Akron in 1899, and in 1910 he patented the method of making glass marbles that still dominates today. His original warehouse was along the old Erie canal. When marbles became currency, its remains were under the Lock 3 public park in Akron. The city quickly excavated the park and found the world's largest known cache of antique marbles.
The financial records from Christensen's company were held by the Itsy Bitsy Toy Company of Akron. That company kept them under lock and key. From that they made a map of where the old distribution centers had been. Lost shipments too. They were scattered across America, and beyond! And Itsy Bitsy started systematically acquiring and mining the ones that nobody else had discovered yet.
One of those site was was in the middle of the Mississippi river along Highway 1 south of Mayersville. In 1915 the riverboat Noted Lady was carrying 20 tons of marbles (among other things), and it sank there. Due to unusual circumstances, the cargo was smeared over a five mile stretch of the river, rather than all being at the site of the wreck.
It had been a dark and stormy night in 1915. The captain and crew were playing cards while watching the river and tending the boiler. They felt a slight collision, looked out, and a well-staffed band of pirates was attempting to board the ship. (We know this because one of the pirates later wrote an autobiography, "Mississippi Harvests".) The crew was able to shoot the first ones aboard. But they only had so many bullets. So, they took to knocking over those barrels of marbles. Had them scatter all over the deck. The pirates would trip on them and be swept overboard. Other pirates attempting to board were met with a hail of marbles on their heads. This worked for awhile, but riverboats have sides that are pretty easy to climb and hang on to, so eventually the pirates got the upper hand. They tied up the remaining crew.
Meanwhile, while the crew was distracted by pirates, they had not been paying attention to navigation. The ship scraped bottom and started taking on water. So the pirates, trying to save the ship, continued dumping marbles into the river to lighten the load. This worked for awhile, but eventually the water won, the ship sank, and the remaining crew died because they were all tied to the ship. The rest of the pirates escaped on the boat they had come on. After that, some mostly-empty barrels of marbles continued floating along the river. Eventually they filled with water and sank too, further downriver.
So. Itsy Bitsy did a survey of the river and found the stretch with the most marbles. They had set up this instant town along the river, Notre Dame Mississippi, complete with armed Itsy Bitsy guards and a barbed-wired warehouse. Ships ferried workers to dredging rigs in the middle of the river, where the river bottom was dug up many feet deep, sifted, then dumped back in. Well, the bottom of the Mississippi, is one of the most polluted things in the world, so the EPA was charging them heftily for doing that. But marbles were money. So they could pay.
They dredged up many things. Yes, marbles. But also complete elephant tusks, lots of them, presumably destined to be piano keys before they sank. Zillions of flint arrowheads. These eyeless porcelain dollheads. A lot of rusted iron, maybe railroad ties, maybe guns, but just rust when they pulled it up. A surprising amount of French gold coinage. Now, ever since that SpaceX gold asteroid, gold was cheaper than copper. It was still certainly useful for wiring and plumbing, but it wasn't worth spending any effort digging up gold from the Mississippi river bottom. French gold coinage, on the other hand, who knows? The year before, marbles were useless, then that year they were money. Maybe the next day president Kardashian would get another whim and something else would become money. So Itsy Bitsy stockpiled in their warehouse anything and everything rare that they found. They had a whole room full of elephant tusks, and another full of eyeless porcelain dollheads, like tiny white skulls, and rooms full of bins of happy little marbles.
I don't know why, but everything about the operation just felt creepy.
President Kardashian came on again. "... Creepy porcelain dolls!"
"Oh yesss" hissed the Itsy Bitsy executive, leaning back in his leather chair and pumping his fists.
"... just kidding!" said the president. "For real this time: halloween candy!"
This was in response to a prompt on reddit.com r/WritingPrompts, "A new resource (natural or magical) is discovered, and boomtowns spring up in otherwise desolate places. But then it happens..."