There was a time when good old-fashioned fun could be had when April 1 rolled around. Practical jokes on “April Fool’s Day” were creative and seldom harmful. It all seems to have changed with the rise of social media, though. Now, widespread practical jokes aren’t confined to only one day a year. You can have misinformation and other nonsense served up and misnamed as “facts” on any given day. It has come to the point for many that it is difficult to know what to believe and to separate fact from fantasy. After all, as they say, “it’s on the internet so it must be true.” I think that was attributed to Abraham Lincoln. See what I mean?

The idea of spreading misinformation on April 1 has a long history. Frivolity, the work of the court jester, was found in the courts of kings. Some studies suggest that April Fools came around with the switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in the 16th century.

In modern times, it’s a day when anything goes, from fraudulent feature stories to advertisements of non-existant products. For a baseball fan, the saga of Sidd Finch, the baseball prospect who could throw a baseball over 160 miles per hour ranks up there as a classic. The work of author George Plimpton led to a true “believe it or not” moment. And then there was the fast food chain that touted the introduction of a left-handed burger where condiments were placed at a 180-degree angle just for the southpaws.

It used to be that a popular April Fool’s hoax story was that the United States Mint was going to stop making the cent. That has matured into real news, even making page 6 of this issue. Nobody’s treating it like a hoax anymore.

The field of numismatics has been a breeding ground for some practical jokes and lasting hoaxes. In a listing of the “Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of All Time,” there are some that numismatists find interesting.

The first of these involves a German newspaper, dated April 1, 1905. The Berliner Tageblatt reported that all of the gold and silver that was stored in the U.S. Treasury had been stolen. According to the story, thieves had tunneled below the Potomac River and worked their way into the Treasury Building on Pennsylvania Avenue. The newspaper went on to value the heist at $268 million and claimed the story was an exclusive, as U.S. officials were trying to keep the story quiet to avoid embarrassment.

Given a black eye to the basic journalism tenet of checking primary sources, much of the German media took the farce at face value and reported it. Some newspapers even drew illustrations to map the route of the thieves. There were some obvious flaws in the story that raised an eyebrow or two in the U.S., such as the fact that the precious metal is not stored in the Treasury Building. U.S. news outlets spun the tale to call attention to the gullibility of European reporting.

A more recent example comes from Denmark and centers on 20-kroner bank notes from 1980 that featured two sparrows. One of the sparrows appeared to have only one leg, so the Roskilde Tidende newspaper reported that all notes with the  one-legged bird were fake. They even incorporated a staff artist to draw a second leg on the bird to offer an image of a “genuine” note.

The story sent readers with the one-legged bird notes (all actually genuine) to post offices for currency exchange, thus overwhelming the post offices. Police got involved, and the artist was questioned by authorities but released without being charged.

It’s all in good fun until you involve money, and remember, that next hoax may be only a social media post away.  

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There was a time when good old-fashioned fun could be had when April 1 rolled around. Practical jokes on “April Fool’s Day” were creative and seldom harmful. It all seems to have changed with the rise of social media, though. Now, widespread practical jokes aren’t confined to only one day a year. You can have misinformation and other nonsense served up and misnamed as “facts” on any given day. It has come to the point for many that it is difficult to know what to believe and to separate fact from fantasy. After all, as they say, “it’s on the internet so it must be true.” I think that was attributed to Abraham Lincoln. See what I mean?

The idea of spreading misinformation on April 1 has a long history. Frivolity, the work of the court jester, was found in the courts of kings. Some studies suggest that April Fools came around with the switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in the 16th century.

In modern times, it’s a day when anything goes, from fraudulent feature stories to advertisements of non-existant products. For a baseball fan, the saga of Sidd Finch, the baseball prospect who could throw a baseball over 160 miles per hour ranks up there as a classic. The work of author George Plimpton led to a true “believe it or not” moment. And then there was the fast food chain that touted the introduction of a left-handed burger where condiments were placed at a 180-degree angle just for the southpaws.

It used to be that a popular April Fool’s hoax story was that the United States Mint was going to stop making the cent. That has matured into real news, even making page 6 of this issue. Nobody’s treating it like a hoax anymore.

The field of numismatics has been a breeding ground for some practical jokes and lasting hoaxes. In a listing of the “Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of All Time,” there are some that numismatists find interesting.

The first of these involves a German newspaper, dated April 1, 1905. The Berliner Tageblatt reported that all of the gold and silver that was stored in the U.S. Treasury had been stolen. According to the story, thieves had tunneled below the Potomac River and worked their way into the Treasury Building on Pennsylvania Avenue. The newspaper went on to value the heist at $268 million and claimed the story was an exclusive, as U.S. officials were trying to keep the story quiet to avoid embarrassment.

Given a black eye to the basic journalism tenet of checking primary sources, much of the German media took the farce at face value and reported it. Some newspapers even drew illustrations to map the route of the thieves. There were some obvious flaws in the story that raised an eyebrow or two in the U.S., such as the fact that the precious metal is not stored in the Treasury Building. U.S. news outlets spun the tale to call attention to the gullibility of European reporting.

A more recent example comes from Denmark and centers on 20-kroner bank notes from 1980 that featured two sparrows. One of the sparrows appeared to have only one leg, so the Roskilde Tidende newspaper reported that all notes with the  one-legged bird were fake. They even incorporated a staff artist to draw a second leg on the bird to offer an image of a “genuine” note.

The story sent readers with the one-legged bird notes (all actually genuine) to post offices for currency exchange, thus overwhelming the post offices. Police got involved, and the artist was questioned by authorities but released without being charged.

It’s all in good fun until you involve money, and remember, that next hoax may be only a social media post away.  

Connect with Coin World:  
Sign up for our free eNewsletter
Access our Dealer Directory  
Like us on Facebook  
Follow us on X (Twitter)

Whether you’re a current subscriber or new, you can take advantage of the best offers on magazine subscriptions available in digital, print or both! Whether you want your issue every week or every month, there’s a subscription to meet your needs.