While most of us are only too adept at turning a US$1,000 into loose change after a weekend of wry abandonment, bill-paying and postponed indulgence, a fair rarer trick is transforming that same grand into US$1.9 million – an ROI of almost 2,000 percent. Sadly, there are few licit investment opportunities that guarantee such a splendid return – unless, of course, you are in possession of a rare 19th century US$1,000 bill, then it’s clearly a doddle…

Indeed, one venerable 130-year-old bit of currency performed just such a display of prestidigitation when it came up for sale courtesy of Stacks Bowers, the New York headquartered auction group. To be fair, its worth stemmed from two hard-to-dispute facts – only 1,500 of these particular bills were ever issued back in 1891, and of them, this is the only extant example in private hands. Even bearing its remarkable provenance in mind, however, the fact that it commanded a price of nearly US$2 million today is still more astounding in that, just 25 years ago, it was valued at no more than US$25,000.