Norwegian Wine Surplus
Perhaps one of the cruelest pranks on the list comes from Norway in which wine lovers were tricked into thinking that they were going to get a bargain on great wine. On April 1, 1950, the Afenposten, the largest newspaper in Norway placed an announcement on its front page. The announcement stated that the Vinmonopolet (the only stores allowed to sell alcohol in Norway) had just gotten a large shipment of wine from France.
There was just one problem with the large shipment – the wine was coming in barrels and the store had run out of bottles. So, in order to get rid of the wine that they did not have bottles for, they were offering the wine at 75% off AND tax-free, as long as people brought their own containers. That was a deal that was too good to pass up for Norwegian wine-lovers.
The stores opened at 10 a.m. and by the time the doors opened there were already long lines of people carrying all sorts of buckets and basins in order to carry their wine purchases. Some people had read about the sale on their way to work and then stopped off to buy buckets in order to go to Vinmonopolet. Sadly, they were all disappointed to find out that when the doors opened there was no such sale to be had. Instead of the streets running with wine they were filled with empty buckets as people just dropped what they had brought when they did not need it.
Part of the reason why people were so willing to believe the ruse was the fact that bottles were in short supply following the war. So, it was not far-fetched to think that a large wine shipment had exhausted the store of bottles, but the sadly the sale was too good to be true.