Horseshoe
retires $1 million display
By David Strow
<strow@lasvegassun.com>
LAS VEGAS
SUN
Charles Manson and
his followers once mugged for the camera in front of it.
Another man stripped naked and waited for the word "cheese."
It was one of the
most memorable public displays of cash in a town built upon
mankind's lust for the dollar.
Benny Binion's $1
million display, alas, is no more.
The display at
Binion's Horseshoe, a must-see downtown Las Vegas landmark
since 1964, was quietly sold in December by Horseshoe owner
Becky Behnen, daughter of late Binion family patriarch,
Benny Binion.
Behnen wouldn't
identify the private collector who bought the collection of
100 $10,000 gold certificates, or how much was paid, other
than to say the price tag was "substantial." The sale was
completed after the collector approached Behnen through a
third-party broker.
Though signs
promoting the huge cash display still sit astride the
entrance to Binion's, the horseshoe-shaped display sits
empty in the casino's lobby, a reminder of old Las Vegas
history.
"It would be fun to
write a book about the display ... so many things happened
in front of it," Behnen said. "Now I'm having nostalgic
thoughts. Kind of a part of me went with it."
The display was the
largest single collection of $10,000 bills in existence.
Distribution of the megabill, featuring the portrait of
former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Salmon Chase, was halted
by the Treasury Department in 1969. Though the bills are
still legal tender, they are removed from circulation once
they're obtained by banks.
Today, the Treasury
Department says only 340 $10,000 bills remain in circulation
-- meaning the Binion's display accounted for a full 30
percent of the bills in circulation. That made the bills far
more valuable than their face value.
"A million dollars
just doesn't have the magnitude it had at one time," Behnen
said. "People are not as impressed about a million dollars
as they used to be. When it first went up, it was like
looking at a billion dollars."
But because of the
rising value of the bills, security costs were increasing
substantially, Behnen said. In addition, the property was
missing out on interest payments on the cash.
"The general public
didn't see that increase in value," she said.
The cash display,
which has roots dating back 46 years, has had a long and
colorful history in Las Vegas. It's estimated more than 5
million visitors had their photos snapped in front of the
display over its history.
"Vegas has become
so blasé about everything, but it's still what Vegas is all
about ... money," former Binion's owner Jack Binion once
said.
The display first
went up in 1954, the brainchild of former Horseshoe owner
Joe W. Brown. At that time, the bills were uncirculated and
in sequence.
"Those would've
been worth a lot more today," Behnen said.
But the value of
the cash became too much to resist, and the bills were
cashed out in 1959.
At that time,
Behnen said, her father called in a Brinks armored car. But
he didn't put the cash in the truck -- instead, he sent the
truck on its way as a decoy, and took the cash to the bank
stowed away in his cowboy boots.
In 1964, Binion
decided to revive the display, and scoured the country for
100 new $10,000 bills. The display went back up, and would
stay up for the next 35 years. Binion would often pose in
front of the cash, wearing his cowboy hat, in publicity
pictures for the Horseshoe.
Until early 1999,
Binion's supplied photographers to provide free photos for
visitors, and hundreds of tourists would line up to have
their photos snapped in front of the cash.
Cash makes people
do funny things. The Binion's cash horde was no exception.
One day, a man
suddenly disrobed in front of the cash display. Instead of
calling security, the photographer simply snapped the photo
so the man would put his clothes back on.
Celebrities lined
up for photos as well. One of the most notorious visitors,
Behnen said, was Charles Manson and his "family," who
dropped by to get their photo taken while they were staying
at Furnace Creek in Death Valley.
After Manson's
arrest, the FBI dropped in with a search warrant and
promptly confiscated the picture. To this day, the FBI still
has the only copy of Manson's photo with Binion's million
dollars.
There's no word on
what will replace the million-dollar display, though Behnen
vows a new display will take its place. It won't be easy to
duplicate with cash -- the largest bill in circulation today
is the $100, and a million-dollar display made of $100 bills
would take up 100 times the space of the old display.
Behnen said she's
talked to the U.S. Mint about possible new displays, and
said one intriguing thought is replacing the display with a
new display of millennium coins. Still, she's keeping quiet
on what the new display will finally be.
"A lot of people
have approached me about new, more updated displays," Behnen
said. "What I'm going to do, I don't know yet, but I'll do
something."
An uncirculated
$10,000 bill goes for about $75,000 on the open market, said
Mark Scott, owner of Sahara Coin in Las Vegas. But the value
of the Binion's bills would be dragged down substantially by
the glue used to hold them in the case.
"That's kind of
like selling a Picasso that's been shellacked," Scott said.
"The value because they came from Binion's is another
story."
Scott expects the
bills could be resold at auction for about $20,000 apiece.
