Everett Taylor: Taylor's Yarns

By EVERETT TAYLOR

Most people likely are collectors at heart but often the results are not impressive enough to gain widespread attention.

Of course, the collecting hobby gets a lot of momentum from those who stand to benefit from selling various items. The U.S. Postal Service, for instance, likes to see people take up stamp collecting as a hobby. Some shops claim everything they sell is a "collectible."

The thing is, just about anything can be considered a collectible if somebody can be convinced to start buying and keeping that particular item.

Most boys, and some girls, get caught up in collecting baseball cards. That trend was helped considerably years ago by a bubble gum company that included a couple of cards with a nickel or dime's worth of their product. That is still is going on, but the price is higher.

There might be a tendency at times to confuse collections with accumulations. A few accumulations around our house might not make much of a splash as genuine collections.

Harrold Little of Tyler is a bona fide collector, best known for his huge collection of miniature trains displayed at a location near his residence at 8103 N. U.S. Highway 271. We had the experience of getting a personally conducted tour of that facility a few years ago, and it has been a column topic more than once.

In a recent letter, Little indicated that he has collected a lot of other things, too. "I have other things beside trains," he explained.

One of them is a collection of some unusual types of money.

"I can't say my money collection is large," he wrote. "But it's big. I can boast of having some unique pieces. An 1862 Virginia Treasury note, and several real Confederate pieces. I have two bragging pieces."

An Antarctica dollar, a bill that originated and was used in Antarctica, is one of them. He said it is "A very colorful note." The other is a regular Silver Certificate, "a bill which, of all the people to whom I have showed it none can say they've seen a bill like it."

Little explained he was in England from October of 1943 to October of 1945 and recalls signing some of these bills.

"Beginning very early in 1942, the pilots who really fought our air war each would doctor a dollar from his billfold by printing, in block print, in the margin of the bill the words 'Short Snorter.' At other places in the bill's margin they'd print their name, home town and the date of initiation.

"It seemed that the Short Snorter dollar was believed to have carried a certain amount of protection," he added. "They could complete a mission and return to home base safely. They'd dare not put a plane to flight without their bill. They flew with an assurance of safety."

Friends, members of the pilot's squadron and passing acquaintances were asked to sign the bills, Little recalls. "The bill I have has roughly 20 names on each side."

He would like to have a little more information about the Short Snorter dollar and its role in World War II to enhance what he remembers himself.

"I wrote to what used to be the Confederate Air Force, inquiring as to their knowledge on this subject," he said. "They'd heard bout these bills but had little to aid me."

Something he did learn is that the Confederate Air Force has a new name: American Airpower Heritage Museum, Inc., 9600 Wright Drive, P.O. Box 62000, Midland, Texas 79711.

Everett Taylor
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