Gotta Love The Creative Old Folks...!

At an age when most of us sort of depend on someone else, this guy decided to really help himself. It almost worked, too!

All things are possible, I reckon, if you work hard enough at it. He even managed to get some sympathy from the government folks! Now that is really something...

The Old Man Who Drew His Own Dollars

Though we’ve already covered Boggs and his incredibly intricate artistic interpretations of money, we also wanted to mention about Edward Mueller. Unlike Boggs, who created his money out of curiosity, Mueller created his out of necessity. We’d also make the argument that Mueller’s story is far more adorable.


Whereas this list is full of people who spent hours painstakingly recreating notes with perfect precision, Mueller’s notes were described as “laughably fake” by the Secret Service—to the point that he may as well have drawn them in crayon. Regardless, he remains the forger with the longest active career in American history, from 1938–1948. So yeah, swivel on that, everyone else on this list.

Because Mueller only copied singles, and only spent them one at a time during busy hours, tracing him proved next to impossible. Also, since his copies were drawn on regular old paper anyone could buy, tracking him down through his suppliers was also out of the question. This allowed Mueller to pass off one or two of his fake notes when times got particularly rough, without being caught.

Over the years, the 62-year-old Mueller’s notes become noticeably poorer in quality, as his equipment became damaged. Eventually, a botched attempt at repairing it resulted in notes spelling Washington as “Wahsington” (d’awww). Even more hilariously, when the government eventually bothered to track down this elusive criminal, hundreds of people coming across his notes actively chose to keep them as souvenirs, rather than handing them in. Which no doubt allowed him to keep on living his quiet, harmless life a few years longer.

However, all good things must come to an end, and Mueller was eventually caught when his home burnt down and his equipment was discovered by some children. His punishment? A year and a day in jail, and amusingly considering his crime, a $1 fine. But his story doesn’t end there—after 20th Century Fox heard Mueller’s story, they immediately bought the rights to it, paying Mueller a sum large enough for him to live on for the rest of his life.

There, don’t you feel better knowing that happened?

The list referred to in this article can be seen over at Listverse, right here.

Coffee out on the patio once again. Never gets old, does it?