“A good luck charm and drinking game all rolled into one.” Thus goes one online description of an unusual American tradition that started with Alaskan stunt pilots in the 1920s then spread like wildfire, “Kilroy Was Here”–style, during World War II. To be in possession of a “short snorter” is to own an offbeat memento of a time long gone. The traveling serviceman would mark his global travels by taping a piece of paper currency from each new country to his ever-growing strip of them. Amid the exigencies of wartime global movement, one’s snorter could become ever less shorter: One legendary example eventually grew to 200 feet in length. More than 400 banknotes comprised it, and when rolled up it made a 15-inch-thick bundle.
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