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BGonline.org Forums
euros for sale
Posted By: Jake Jacobs In Response To: euros for sale (neilkaz)
Date: Tuesday, 12 April 2016, at 2:49 a.m.
Years ago in Korea there was a flourishing black market for currency exchange. I won't go into the long story about finding the market, led down a dead-end, pitch black alley with the equivalent of $85K in my pocket. But when I sat down at the kitchen table with the money changer he wrote "Buy" and "Sell" (underlined for emphasis) across the top of a sheet of paper, then "$20" and "$100" along the left margin, explaining "Twenty dollar bill: I buy, I sell," pointing at the entries he had made at the appropriate grid coordinates, "hundred dollar bill I buy, I sell."
What were his rates?
The $20 spread was 820-836, while the $100 was 832-837. I knew very few words of Korea then, but had my trusty English-Korean dictionary with me. I taught him a phrase that amused him: "volume discount." He lowered the hundred dollar spread to 832-836.
He used to have something better than money: blank thousand-dollar traveler's checks. Unfortunately, in October of 1992, in anticipation of the end of the world, he sold his shop, the Honorable Jesus Bookstore, and vanished.
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