Customer Reviews

The Secret Symbols of the Dollar Bill: A Closer Look at the Hidden Magic and Meaning of the Money You Use Every Day

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The author has 100 points (factoids) about the one dollar bill. He focuses on the various symbols found on this familiar item, the possible signficance of this symbols, when and why they first appeared etc. Some of this information is aleady quite well known, such as the fact that many of government officals in the past and present are Masons and that many of our nation's symbols have a basis in Masonic tradition. Other items are not as well known, such as the extensive (according to the author) use of numerology.

I found the book interesting but was a bit frustrated by the format. Instead of a regular narrative divided into chapters with subheadings the author has 100 numbered sections of one or more short paragraphs giving the book the look and feel of a rough draft.

The author also has a tendancy to state his point and then simply move on. At the end of the book I had learned several intriguing tidbits but was left wondering 'so what?'.

If you would like to find a way to spend a few hours and pickup a few factoids to toss out then get this book, a dollar bill and a ruler and enjoy. Don't be surprised though if after dazzling your friends by displaying unsuspected triangles and pointing out the repetitions of various numbers and symbols if you are not asked what is the point to all this.

"Fascinating." "Extraordinary." "Dazzling." Breathless adjectives like this, taken directly from the blurb on the back cover, echo the tone of the book itself. While purporting to reveal "the fascinating secret meanings behind the design of the money we use every day," this book instead merely presents a series of more-or-less unconnected factoids about the various images found on the US $1 bill. Having previously read Ovason's *The Zelator* on the recommendation of a friend, I recognize this rambling and disconnected manner of presentation as something characteristic of the author's ouvre and not merely something particular to this specific book. Sadly, Ovason's writing style wrings all the power and magic out of a fascinating premise and replaces it with a sullen "so what?" I also found annoying Ovason's habit of passing off unsubstantiated assertions as fact, something that he does on a regular basis.

A page-by-page analysis of the book is inappropriate for a book review, but one choice example should suffice to support my criticisms. On page 5 (in his irrelevant factoid on how the word "dollar" originally came from Germany, irrelevant because he fails to connect it with any subsequent factoid) Ovason makes the claim that only those who knew that the dollar sign had been derived from a crucifix (one of the many points he assumes rather than proves) would get the "half-joke" from Sinclair Lewis' *Main Street* that the dollar sign "chased the crucifix clean off the map." Really? I would have thought that was a pretty transparent reference to the fact that the "almighty dollar" had supplanted the Christian God in the hearts of America's faithful, a rather mundane theme which is in keeping with the rest of Sinclair Lewis' writing. Far too often, a section heading that includes wiggle words like "may," "possible," "might" is followed by a paragraph from which these qualifiers are absent. One need read only a few pages into the book to see that Ovason's tendency to confuse assertion with fact is clearly evident.

A good book on the symbolism of the dollar bill would definitely be an interesting read for those interested in American history, Freemasonry, and symbolism in general. Sadly this isn't that book.

This book was good but not great. It could have been so much more. The book is made up of a series of bullet points (e.g., "The five-pointed star is a magical symbol linked with duration and time."). The bullet points are followed by some explanatory material, but there is very little, if any, text that ties all of the points together to show their context and relevance. If this book had more prose that tied it all together, it would have easily deserved 5 stars. The book also has numerous factual and typographical errors. For example, the author calls the second president of the United States "John Adam" instead of "John Adams". The author also makes numerous references to things on the dollar bill, saying "the seal on the right", when it is really the seal on the left. This book needed a good editor! Overall, I enjoyed reading this book, but feel it missed the mark in key ways.

Part historical documentary / commentary & part obvious design element breakdowns, this left me feeling as though the author put together a few colloqial bar stories about the dollar bill, googled the rest and cobbled it together in the least interesting thing I have read this year.

This was a quick read and very informative! The author isn't much of a writer or story teller. He sticks to the facts and moves forward and in many ways I liked that style. I learned a lot about our nation's symbolism and the dollar bill. I'm glad I picked this one up!

This work is grounded in very careful and painstaking research. It's an excellent resource that helps sort fact from fiction, and takes a measured accounting of some historic relationships and cross currents that are far from easy to untangle. On the whole, I found it an impeccable and precise guide.

If you would like to learn about the secret symbols of the dollar bill in an easy to read format then this is a great book to own.
The author explains the origins of the $ symbol.
The author explains the origins of the Great Seal (which is on the dollar bill).
The author explains the numerology behind the dollar bill's symbols.