They were obviously well stuck together. remember he took the bills to PCGS who found more serial numbers. makes you wonder how well the FBI really looked at them?
Yes... thats a fact.
Let me post an alternate theory on questions some people have, regarding the Ingram money.
Below is an official news conference photo of the Ingrams presenting their find and a CORBIS photo of the money groups the Ingrams were turning in, on the table. This is a true depiction of what the Ingrams supposedly found and turned in. The Ingrams say what they found was a single block of "wet" money and when they pulled the money out from the sand it came out in two pieces; as opposed to the twelve groups they turned in (shown on the table). They further say ‘that the money was divided into three bundles held together by rubber bands’! And when they got back to the apartment they separated the money into groups and tried to clean and dry it (on the kitchen table). One news report the Ingrams gave has Pat Ingram trying to wash some of the money in the kitchen sink .. and using a little Clorox “to brighten the money up”! The intent of their actions was to have something usable to turn in to a bank, for redemption. In the following two to seven days things change and they wind up in a news conference with the FBI and Himmelsbach, and they push for a reward for Brian, while Crystal Ingram pushes for a reward for her daughter Denise who Crystal claims found the money and calls a radio station to gain support!
At length, the Ingrams sue to get a reward, using the attorney Richard Tosaw.
There is no photo of the Ingrams rejoining the groups shown on the table, as a demonstration of the original block of money they supposedly found. Likewise, there is no photo of the ‘three bundles held together by rubber bands’, formed from the groups shown on the table. The Ingrams say the rubber bands turned to dust on touching … Pat Ingrams reported she picked off pieces of stuck (crystalised) rubber bands from some of the bills. I can’t see any rubber band fragments stuck on bills in these photos? We have no clear demarcation from among these groups on the table of which groups belonged to any ‘bundle’. And apparently Mr. Himmelsbach never thought to ask these questions or give a demonstration, to the reporters present? Later we are told the amount found was $5800; Carr says each bundles varied from $500 to $1000 each, according to the bank official who banded the bundles.
There is an apparent wide difference in condition among the 12 groups shown on the table. There is enough difference in condition one wonders how these groups ever composed one single block, as found? In addition, no known ‘rubber band fragment’ survived to be identified and shown so it could be tested– anywhere including at the FBI presentation, or later, we are told! All of the band fragments Pat picked off bills .... vanished.
The idea that a child would be told to sweep out a place for a campfire and would “feel” something below the surface which turned out to be ‘three bundles of Cooper money’, seems tantamount to winning the lottery, to me. It is a remarkable story, in an adventure already full of remarkable accounts and supposed factoids. Presumably, if we had been first on the scene as the Ingrams were leaving Tina Bar, what we would have found would be a single hole from which Brian and his father extricated the found money, as opposed to a wide swath of sand that had been disturbed and dug producing the twelve groups of money shown on the FBI table. Two FBI agents who were first on the scene and canvassed the area of the Ingram find say what they found was a clearly visible fragment field leading right up to the area of the Ingram find. They never saw or found a single hole that someone had dug. They drove a stake where Brian and Harold indicated they had found the money but never saw a clearly defined "hole".
After the Ingrams turned in their money, technicians at the FBI separated these groups turned in by the Ingrams, flattened and pressed single bills, and finger printed some of the bills using a silver nitrate (spray) solution (which now accounts for the blackened bills). Some of the fragments and bills could not be easily separated from all of their component pieces so were left ‘as is’ (right up to the present), and some fragments stuck to bills waited to be separated years later by the auction company examiner, when Brian Ingram put his bills up to auction. The estimated count of $5800 in assumed individual bills has not changed since 1980.
No ‘clock’ has ever been set using strict forensic methods keying on the deterioration present in these bills, except a cursory attempt made by Tom Kaye that perhaps 1/8th inch edge loss around the periphery of the bills may represent one year’s worth of loss due to decay.
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