While snuggling with my three year old little girl this evening, I was watching Pawn Stars on the History Channel.  A person came into the shop with a "Short Snorter".  Don't worry if this term is foreign to you, I had no clue what it was.

I got the gist from watching the show, but did some research to get a full understanding.  According to wikipedia.com (and several other sources that had the exact same wording......who is who plagiarizing who?  But I digress), the definition of a Short Snorter is:

"A banknote (paper money) inscribed by people traveling together on an aircraft.  The tradition started with Alaskan bush  pilots in the 1920s."

The military connection comes to play when crews of aircraft would sign paper money as a sign of good luck to all aboard.  Apparently, crews became quite fanatical about the practice, making sure that everyone signed the bill.  These became a keepsake.  There is even a website devoted to Short Snorters, which is http://shortsnorters.org.  here you can view many photos of signed bills, and read their history.  Famous people signed them as well.  Pretty interesting!

I wonder if any readers of this post ever signed a Short Snouter, know how the name came about, or have heard of these?

The one at left is signed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt 2/3 of the way down.  Picture source http://fdrheritage.org