Some artistic licence has been taken here; the facts are all true, they just didn't all happen in the same story. This idea came to me while watching "Pawn Stars" and drinking stronger than usual beer.

I was having dinner in Yokohama with a business associate who was visiting from Europe. 

When it came time to split the bill, he pulled out a pile of two thousand yen notes.

I was a bit surprised to see so many, because they are not in general circulation in 

Japan due to being very unpopular and confusing. They were first introduced in the year 

2000 to commemorate the Okinawa G8 summit, but since people were used to having only 

one, five and ten thousand notes, most people would check their change by counting how 

many notes they had rather than checking the values, so the new notes caused a lot of 

problems. Rejected by the Japanese public, they were recycled into the foreign exchange 

market to be used by unsuspecting, and uncomplaining, foreigners.

So my colleague put down two of these forsaken bills to pay his half of our bill, and 

my eyes popped again! One of them had a fatal printing mistake that resulted in a large 

number of the first batch printed being recalled and destroyed; the serial numbers on 

the left and right side did not match!

As an avid currency collector, I could not let this opportunity slip through my grasp.

I told him straight away it was a valuable note, and explained that at auction it could 

get up to ten times it's face value.

Since he was leaving the next day, there was no way he could get that kind of money for 

it , so I made him a fair offer; I would exchange it for two one-thousand yen notes.

And here arises the paradox:

1. I was telling the truth about the premium value of the note, but was offering him 

much less than the note was worth.

2. I was lying, but was giving him a fair price for it.

In both cases, he faced no risk, and no chance of reward.

 Was I being honest and fair?

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