So you can travel back in time as far as you want. I mean like to the Roman Empire, the time of Dinosaurs, or Tuesday…
…But the only thing you can take with you (I’ll allow the clothes on your back, though, depending on the destination, you might do well to change them) is the oldest coin you actually physically own.
The oldest coin I own is from 1904; a Canadian five-cent piece with Edward VII on the face.
I’d go to early in 1904, and bet that coin at incredibly huge odds that by the end of the next year a guy named Albert would describe mathematically how Brownian Motion explains the atom.
It’d take a year or so, probably of hard work just to survive. But if anyone took that bet, at that time, it prolly would’ve paid like several bunches of millions to one.
It would take a few years, but I’d bet on the Burr-Hamilton duel. Actually, I’d have to wait a few years anyway, because the coin’s not in mint condition.
I have a number of pre-colonial coins and one or two ancient Roman coins.
But the prized money in my collection has to be my series of Redbud leaves. Little known fact: Ever since they adopted the leaf as a unit of currency, everyone all became extremely rich which led to enormous inflation. So to solve that problem, they recommended burning down all the trees.
Thankfully I kept mine.
Send me back to about 200 AD to what is now Monterey, CO.
First thing to do is to ditch the coin. Next I get to work “inventing” stuff and start an empire that spreads from coast to coast and eventually “discovers” Europe.
I can go back to 1888 with one silver dollar to my name. Looking at wiki’s entry for 1888…
I’d sell George Eastman the rights to his own camera for an upfront amount of money plus a small cut from his profits and a job. I’d then place a very large wager that the presidential election will end with the popular vote getter losing in the Electoral College. That’s gotta be worth some coin, right? (Did they have such bets back then?)