A Shrewd Investment, or Dumb Luck?
For years, Timothy Dexter toiled diligently, and built up a nest egg of thousands of dollars in savings – a respectable chunk of change at the time. His first major break towards financial independence, and it is unclear whether it was a shrewd investment or just plain dumb luck, came at the end of the American Revolution. He spent his life savings to buy a lot of depreciated Continental currency, both federal and state, which was worthless at the time. Everybody thought he was an idiot and a fool.
To everybody’s surprise, Dexter the investor benefited from the dumb luck of beginners, when Congress decided to redeem its wartime notes at 1% of face value. 1% might not seem like much, but it was still a whole lot more than Dexter had paid for those notes. Better yet, Massachusetts went and redeemed its wartime notes for their full face value. Seemingly overnight, Dexter went from hubby of a rich widow to rich in his own right. Until then, he was an unremarkable businessman, but as seen below, the sudden wealth transformed him into an eccentric dingbat.
